Wednesday, January 10, 2007
News / Clout City No more Ms. Nice Gal
Posted by Ben Joravsky on Wed, Jan 10, 2007 at 1:11 PM
Far be it from me to give advice to any mayoral candidate. The only time I ran for office was in junior high.
But having spent the better part of a week interviewing Cook County Circuit Court clerk Dorothy Brown, watching her on the stump, and talking to her supporters, it's become obvious to me that she's got to get nasty. It's hard enough to take on a powerful and well-funded incumbent like Mayor Daley. It's impossible if you run as if you're applying for a job in the auditing division of a large corporation.
Brown has an impressive resume (CPA, MBA, JD), and she's got a stirring story to tell (born in poverty, raised with seven sibblings in a two-bedroom house in small-town Louisiana--she picked cotton, for goodness sakes). But if she thinks people will go for her 'cause they like her plucky personality, she'll be lucky to win 10 percent of the vote.
As one of her steadfast south-side backers told me, "She's got to stop being so nice. Every time Daley bends over, she's got to put her foot in his ass."
In other words, take a page from Tony Peraica's playbook: hammer Daley as hard as Peraica hammered Stroger. Link Daley to Sorich and Tomczak and the Duffs and the hired trucks scandal and the broken Red Line and soaring taxes and out-of-control TIFs.
I know Brown's a long shot no matter what she does (playing tough didn't work for Peraica). But at least her candidacy forces people to think about the need for change. Perhaps she can even wake up a few aldermanic candidates and encourage them to speak out. At the very least, "she's got to give people a reason to vote against Daley," says her supporter.
She's still got a little time. In 1979 Jane Byrne's campaign against Michael Bilandic didn't take off until just before the election, when the city's failed to clear the streets and run the trains after several snowstorms.
Maybe Brown should hope for snow.
Comments (12)
Showing 1-12 of 12
Amen. My God, Daley is practically giving them the bullet and begging him to put him out of his misery, like Jane Fonda at the end of "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" But both of the declared candidates are apparently afraid to handle the gun. What do they have to lose? Neither had a public office to lose because of the election, right? If this were NYC, the election would end with a Tough Man Competition between the two strongest candidates. Someone, PLEASE, call Ritchie out on this stuff!
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Poor pathetic Ben Joravsky. Add him to the list of the media that cares more about a good cat/dogfight for the Mayor's race than they do about good government. First all of the media jackals gave fellatio to jessie jackson jr. for the better part of the year only for him to cum on them and not even offer a kleenex by pulling out of the race. now little Benny and the others are pinning their hopes on Cryin' Dorothy Brown in order to sell some newspapers. Listen up Benny-boy, the City is beautiful, people are working, test scores are up, all indicators are that Chicago is a wonderful place - due to Mayor Daley. Why don't you and the other malcontents move out to Oak Park (with Mark Brown) or Skokie (with Fran Spielman) or someplace else. We love our City the way it is.
DM, You are very articulate when you speak, but you are still a SUCK-ASS for Mayor Daley and his Irish Mafia! You are on Daley's Pay-Roll and have all day to post Propaganda. Repeat after me....DEMOCRACY.
DM -- did Daley give you kneepads, or did you have to provide those yourself? Now run along and shred some documents before the Feds catch you.
So you had to kneel in front of Daley on a cold, hard floor. Daley is harsh. He should have been decent and let you borrow kneepads from Frank Kreusi.
Kates: Politics ain't beanbag. Don't go Dorothy Brown on us and start crying now.
Ben, I told you I can really set these Daley Stooges off. DM is cool, until Coconate steps into the Party!
==PROPOSAL FOR AN ELECTION EXPERIMENT== This may not be the proper forum for this, but I will state my 'idea'/'proposal' anyway, and see if anyone is intrigued by my reasoning. I hold the opinion that it has been a very, very long time since we, the citizens of these United States, have truly and honestly been represented by our so-called 'public servants'. While it can be said that a certain small percentage of any given area's population is well and generously served by their elected officials,(at the financial and social expense of the area's 'common', politically unconnected citizens),for the most part, our elected officials are motivated by three basic principles: get power, keep power and use that power to gain wealth, for themselves and for those of like mind. I assert that the vast majority of voters are poorly served by the 'powers that be', in all areas of their daily lives. It is obvious that many 'public servants' define themselves as being those individuals who are served BY the public. This sad state of affairs is the result of simple mathematics. If one determines, in any given area,(ie. city, county, state and federal),the total number of citizens who are qualified to cast a vote, one finds that perhaps 50%, more or less, of that number are actually registered to vote; further,in any given election, one finds that typically between 50% - 60% of those registered don't even bother to make the effort to actually cast their vote(s). Thus, all that is required to win a 2 person race is 51% of the votes actually cast, effectively meaning that a mere 26% of the total number of citizens qualified to vote are determining who is elected. In a race of more than 2 contestants, the percentage needed to win becomes even lower than 26%. It is a puzzling mystery why the 2 major political parties, the Dumbocrats and the Retardicans, continue to strongly resist the establishment of additional political parties, though one sees occasional use of 'shill' candidates by both major parties. So, I propose a little experiment, to be conducted in both the smallest, local level elections, (ie. town, city, county, township, village,etc.), as well as in the larger level elections, (ie. state and federal), an experiment which is designed to accomplish several goals and answer several questions,(besides the obvious one, of seeing if enough people/voters will get off their butts and choose to participate in this experiment!). Basically, my question is this: what would happen if enough voters choose, in every election, both primary and general, to cast their votes by adhering to the following rules, completely disregarding all factors commonly used by voters to make their decisions on who to vote for, and simply casting their vote(s) by applying these rules/formula: * 1) Determine which candidates are the INCUMBENTS and DO NOT vote for any of them. * 2) If there are only two candidates running for any given office, all that the voter MUST know is which one is the INCUMBENT, then vote for the CHALLENGER candidate. * 3) If there are MORE than two candidates vying for a given office, determine if the incumbent is listed FIRST, and IF THIS IS SO, then vote for the challenger candidate who is listed LAST. * 4) If the incumbent is NOT listed FIRST, then vote for the challenger candidate who IS listed FIRST. * 5) If no incumbent is running for office, always vote for the LAST candidate listed. Remember to COMPLETELY DISREGARD all impulses to concern yourself with the specific persons who you are voting for and/or the specific persons you are not voting for and/or the specific incumbents who will, should enough voters in any given election participate in this experiment, be losing their jobs. Remember,also,that the issues don't matter, policies don't matter, individual candidates' personal charm/attractiveness does not matter..................... nothing matters other than adhering to the 5 rules stated above. If enough voters in any given election participate in this experiment, the result should be that a whole lot of incumbents will be voted out of office. What reaction(s), on the part of politicians and their cronies, will this stimulate? If enough voters CONTINUE to participate in this experiment during the next several election cycles, thus keeping any specific person from holding office for more than a single term, will those non-politically connected individuals who would like to sincerely serve their fellow citizens by holding public office, but have determined that their chances of being elected are slim-to-none, now find that they have a reasonably decent chance of succeeding in holding public office? Will the 'professional politicians' eventually find other lines of work and abandon trying to gain and hold power over their fellow citizens, (since it's difficult to establish power,influence and control in just a single term in office)? Will the majority of those citizens who do gain public office now be honest, ethical, hard-working and intelligent individuals, who seek office to actually serve the electorate, (since the traditional motivations of power, influence and wealth will effectively no longer be available)? Will these new, honest candidates, now encouraged to run for office, alter the usual dynamics of 'campaigning'? And in what ways? As the reader may surmise, this experiment is designed to disrupt the decades-old flow of bullshit, which has passed for so long as democracy; bullshit both by the politicians and bullshit by the voting public's failure to effectively participate in their own governing. The above experiment should be conducted in all political contests; Administrative, Executive, Legislative and Judicial. The rule to remember is: WHEN IN DOUBT, VOTE THEM OUT. The 5 rules above are designed to mathematically ensure that the maximum number of votes are cast in such a way as to be effective in denying all elected officials more than one term in office; to prove, by the only means those smugly in power ever understand, that the voters actually determine who holds public office, and that those presently holding said office(s) have, for way too long, held the vast majority of their constituents in contempt, evidenced not by their words, but by their deeds. Keep in mind that this experiment I am proposing is not meant to be a solution to our present social, economic and political disparities, but more as a catalyst for positive change in the attitudes of those who claim to represent ALL citizens' best interests, instead of the present predominance of their representing only the interests of the chosen few. To paraphrase one of our past presidents, who once said: * You may fool SOME of the people ALL of the time * You may fool ALL of the people SOME of the time * But you cannot fool ALL of the people, ALL of the time The sad reality is that you need only to fool just the right number of people, at just the right time, to attain power and control over the many.
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