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Daley Doesn’t Need HimWhy a vote for Obama is not a vote for the mayor
By Ben Joravsky September 18, 2008
Political activist Jay Stone recently sent out a press release seeking recruits for his latest crusade against Mayor Daley. In it he blasted city officials for awarding a $40 million, five-year “pinstripe patronage” contract to Aon Corporation to help the city make sure hiring is free from patronage and political favoritism. It seems fair to wonder about that deal, as Aon’s founder and retired chairman, Patrick Ryan, is heading up the mayor’s efforts to bring the Olympics to Chicago. But Stone lost me at the end of the release, when he took a shot at Barack Obama for not having “the courage and conviction to stand up to Mayor Daley”—and then essentially endorsed Senator John McCain for president. Yet Stone was only putting into writing what I’ve been hearing from quite a few Daley haters who claim a vote for Obama is a vote for mayoral tyranny. It’s time to set them straight.
This year’s presidential election is about a lot of things, but it’s most certainly not a referendum on Daley. He’d consolidated his power long before Obama came on the scene, and he’ll hold on to it no matter who wins.
Lord knows Daley has no long-standing allegiance to Obama—he hasn’t significantly helped Obama at any stage of his career. He didn’t endorse him during his successful bid for the state senate or his unsuccessful attempt to unseat Congressman Bobby Rush. He didn’t even back him in the 2004 Senate primary. Daley only endorsed Obama in the presidential campaign because he didn’t really have a choice—he had to look enthusiastic about the hometown guy, especially since he didn’t want to alienate black voters in last year’s mayoral election.
What’s more, Daley has no problem getting cozy with Republicans. In fact, Patrick Ryan is a major Republican donor: he’s given more than $200,000 to the Illinois GOP over the last few years and hosted a fund-raiser for President Bush at his house in Winnetka. In the last year Ryan and his wife have donated thousands of dollars to the campaigns of McCain, Rudolph Giuliani, and Mitt Romney—and nothing to Obama. In 2006, though, he gave Daley $100,000.
Daley himself all but endorsed Bush in 2004: he stayed out of the campaign until it was over, at which point he promptly blamed John Kerry and the national Democrats for losing. On the day after the election, Daley told reporters that the Republicans had become “the party of the people” while the Democrats had been taken over by “Washington elitists” who “don’t like faith-based organizations” or people “who maybe read the Bible or read the Koran.” His comments would have fit in comfortably with the speeches by Giuliani, Romney, and Sarah Palin at this year’s Republican convention.
Mayor Daley doesn’t need a Chicago Democrat in the White House to retain his grip on power. His machine is truly a bipartisan affair. If you don’t believe me, ask the folks in northwest suburban Bensenville. One of their Republican state reps, Skip Saviano, and their Republican chairman of the DuPage County Board, Robert Schillerstrom, teamed up with legislators from both parties in the General Assembly to pass a law giving Daley the authority to snatch 15 percent of their town for the O’Hare expansion. That’s what I call reaching across the aisle.
And none other than the Bush administration financed this land grab with hundreds of millions of federal dollars. No wonder Mayor Daley took the president out for such a nice dinner in 2006, when he came to town to celebrate his 60th birthday.
When it comes to approving Daley’s boondoggles, the Bush administration has been nearly as accommodating as the Chicago Plan Commission, the Community Development Commission, or any of the other local oversight boards Daley controls. And Republicans in Washington have handed over hundreds of millions of dollars for the Brown Line reconstruction and the never-finished underground station at Block 37.
Am I disappointed that Obama is not as passionately antimachine as, say, I am? Absolutely. But then I’m just as disappointed in the 70-plus percent of my fellow Chicago voters who keep on electing our mayor no matter what he does. And I’m even more disappointed in our local Republicans, who have deserted their core free-market principals on issue after issue as they fall into line with the mayor. Our Republicans are tough as nails when it comes to entitlements for the poor—got to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and all that—but when it’s time to feed big businesses and developers from Daley’s TIF trough, man, they can’t get enough.
Like every other liberal Democrat in this state, Obama had to make a monumental decision when he started his career. He could fight the machine, join it, or pretend it didn’t exist. He chose the third option, which put him in the company of most of the other liberals around here.
But I’ve cut Obama some slack, just as I did Dick Durbin, Paul Simon, Sidney Yates, Paul Douglas, and all the other liberals we’ve sent to Washington. Agreeing to look the other way while the machine does its dirty deeds is part of the deal they make to win a seat in Congress and start working on important national issues. Lots of Democratic superstars—like Harry Truman and John Kennedy—got their start with the backing of local political machines and went on to bigger and better things.
Put it this way: There are plenty of other reasons you might want to vote for McCain. You may want to cut federal funding for public schools and cities, eliminate the distribution of birth control devices to teenagers, or, if Palin gets her way, force women to carry their pregnancies to birth, even if they’re raped. You may regard homosexuality as a degenerate sin that can be cured by prayer, or you may want to promote creationism alongside evolution in public schools. Maybe you oppose laws that guarantee women equal pay or compel businesses to follow environmental regulations. Or you might just be terrified at the thought of a black man getting elected president.
You want to vote Republican, go ahead. But don’t justify your vote for McCain as a vote against Daley. You’ll be fooling yourself. 
For more on politics, see our blog Clout City. Send a letter to the editor.
From the Reader blogs Clout City Mick Dumke: Aldermen hold another hearing on the parking meter lease deal. Their conclusion: it still stinks.
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The truth at 10:34 PM on 9/17/2008
Daley does need Obama in the Whitehouse if he wants to fund the Olympics. The financial crisis in the markets is going to get worse and the ability to fund the Olympics without the back room deal to slide federal funds to Daley won't happen unless Obama is in.
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P at 3:42 PM on 9/18/2008
If Daley was able to get George Bush to fund his various boondoggles, why would he need Obama? Maybe McCain would serve his interests even better.
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prescott at 9:53 PM on 9/18/2008
Who thinks a vote against Obama is a vote against Daley? The criticism is that Obama hasn't just ignored what's going on here, he's actively endorsed the cogs in said machine. Maybe he should have sent his "silent signal" in the last mayoral and county elections.
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The Doc at 10:48 AM on 9/19/2008
Ben is on the mark here. From the 40,000 foot level, the Daley administration likely doesn't care who is elected president, nor should they if they've been paying attention. Whether it's Obama or McCain, the federal government is so mired in debt that any hope of significant funding coming to Chicago via the feds simply isn't realistic, Olympic pipe dream or otherwise. Daley's likely reasons for actively supporting Obama are twofold. One, riding the coattails of the local superstar only serves to enhance Daley's image; or rather, supporting McCain would drastically erode his power base. It's a no-brainer. Secondly, putting Obama in Washington insulates Daley from any possibility that he'd run for governor, or (yikes) mayor - races he'd win.
Supporting Obama is merely a defense mechanism, a means to sustain the status quo of unchecked power on the 5th floor of city hall.
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Chris Lawrence at 2:07 PM on 9/19/2008
That Mr. Joravsky would attempt to set us straight on the mayor's indifference to which party sits in the Whitehouse, or even Ben's attempt to expose the mayor’s hypocritical governing philosophy (if you can call it that) or even the mayor’s party affiliation, is fair. But Ben lost me when he castigates the local Republicans (if there are any - besides the mayor) who 'desert their core free-market principals on issue after issue' - while admitting he will cut liberal Democrats some slack when they routinely abandon their core progressive principals on issue after issue – particularly when it comes to transparent, ethical, and accountable government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
There are plenty of reasons you might not want to vote for Obama – and the least of which is his token expressions of support toward the progressive causes people like Ben are so passionate about. From the Bush/Cheney energy bill he voted for (McCain and Biden voted against it); to his opposition to gay marriage and equal rights while he hides behind his ‘religious convictions and teachings’; to his abandoning his pledge to participate in the public financing of elections to ensure corporate and union money doesn’t overly influence our presidential elections; to his support of the FISA legislation after yet another promise during the primaries to oppose any legislation that didn’t bring some accountability too those companies who spied on American citizens for the US government.
And please spare me the typical Maureen Dowd press response to characterizing and ridiculing the opposing party candidates. Am I disappointed that McCain put his political fortunes ahead of what would have been an ideal governing partner in a McCain administration by choosing Gov. Palin? Sure. But I do think there are four real things in Alaska that make her a much better fit for the kind of leadership we need in Washington to confront the grossly corrupt and inept governance. As Daniel Henninger points out in the Wall Street Journal today, "she took on: her party’s state chairman, her party’s state attorney general, GOP Gov. Frank Murkowski’s tainted gas pipeline project, and then she supported a GOP candidate who ran against Alaska’s "untouchable" GOP congressional earmarker, Don Young.
One way or another, each episode involved severing the sleazy ties that bind public officials to grasping commercial interest, something even the Democratic left purports to favor."
Obama couldn’t even bring himself to endorse a real reformer running for county commissioner who’s campaign was managed by his own presidential campaign manager – to say nothing of his profound silence of those who have shown the courage to stand up and run against the Lipinski/Madigan/Jones/Mell/Hynes et al who have treated our elected positions at all levels of government as royal titles to passed from one generation to the next.
This nation is facing enormous economical/military/diplomatic/social problems that it simply can not afford to continue to allow this mindless partisan divide to allow our elected officials from confronting and providing leadership to address. It is one thing to look the other way and allow political hacks and clout hiring to control your Street and Sanitation or even your County Hospital – it is something else entirely to allow that kind of governing philosophy toward federal agencies like the Justice Department, FEMA, or god forbid, the NSA. If American’s continue to think like Ben – and can recognize the dangers of allow the traditional corrupted relationship of city hall with its $5 billion dollar budget – how is Obama going to ‘change’ the corrupting influences in a $2.8 trillion federal budget? You think things are bad here in Chicago – you should get in on the inside of the DOD contracting.
If this presidential election does anything, I hope that it awakens Americans that this two party system is fundamentally broken. That it encourages those ‘hockey mom’s’ and soccer mom’s all over this nation to step and reclaim their government. That an independent populist movement that rejects the two party system takes hold, and offers real choices and real debate over real issues that is effecting us. That it begin to drive a nail into the coffin of both corrupted parties, and awaken an independent movement that recruits the best among us, not yet another Harvard educated elitist who looks down on the very people they are suppose to be advocating for. That the local carpenter, or barber, of banker, or soldier realizes that you don’t need an Ivy league education to possess principles and the courage to stand up for those principles, and that the fundamental problem we are facing is a failure of leadership that thinks the problems before this nation are "above my pay grade".
You want to vote for Democrats, go ahead. But don’t justify your vote for Obama as a vote against the status quo of corrupt and inept government at all levels of government. You’ll be fooling yourself.
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M Olz at 2:40 PM on 9/19/2008
Holy irresponsible. Stick with your point, and keep the unrelated jabs for a different piece.
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Let there be rain at 10:08 PM on 9/19/2008
Ben I don't know what you are smoking these days to say a vote for Barack,is not a vote for Daley.
Bill Daley,David Axelrod,Valarie Jarrett, John Rogers and a sortment of Daley Hacks running and Advising Barack's campaign. If it quacks and flies its probabily a duck Ben. Maybe Corporate Chicago is putting the squeeze on you and the Reader to get with their agenda. I have no problem with you and the reader trying to shoot the grease at the rest of us,you have to eat too. Daley wants to revive his daddy's plan to build the Crosstown expressway so you needs a Barack presidency. Also, our Semi -retard Mayor want the same distinction his father held as being a king maker. Sure Daley and his MINNIONS WILL MAKE DEAL WITH THE Republican,BUT Daley's ego is in the way in this Presidential race. Regardless if he likes Obama or not.
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Exactly at 10:18 PM on 9/19/2008
Could you imagine the Daley hacks running his campaign in turn running the government as Lawrence says?
It would be patronage destruction of the US government at all levels. You may as well hand the government over to the Daley Administration now. Where else is Obama going to get his experts from?
He has one choice, hire Daleys hacks. Its all about the payoff.
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Bill Dwyer at 9:26 AM on 9/20/2008
Wow. Let there be Rain's comments just go to show that no matter how explicit your argument may be, there are still those who will simply ignore it and tout their own unsupported view.
At least C. Lawrence threw in a few facts to support his views, even if they don't support his conclusions.
Great job as usual by Joravsky. In a better world, he'd be writing four times a week for a daily, and people like John Kass would be the weekly columnist.
BTW, I hear John McCain and Sarah Palin have trying to post on this site, but neither one of them have been able to figure out the math on your anti-spam measure.
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Hugh at 9:25 AM on 9/22/2008
Press release from hypnotherapist, former aldermanic candidate, and aldermanic son Jay Stone:
Stop the Corruption, Not the Olympics
Shortly after the Federal Court Monitor Noelle Brennan announced the names of the people who would receive a share of the $12 million civil rights discrimination settlement, Mayor Richard M. Daley used the scandal to create a new and bigger one. Daley was supposed to award contracts to rid City Hall of patronage but instead Daley gave a $40 million pinstripe patronage contract to Aon Corporation, whose chairman Patrick Ryan is Daley's long-time personal friend and also Daley's official Olympic Committee chief. Daley accepted a $100,000.00 campaign contribution from Ryan and another $25,000.00 contribution from Aon executive Michael D. O'Halleran in violation of Daley's own executive order and Chicago's Ethics ordinance. If we can't trust Mayor Daley to follow his own executive order, how can we trust him to obey the law?
Jay Stone, a recipient of a $75,000.00 political discrimination award, reported Daley's ethics violations to Federal Court Monitor Brennan. According to Stone, Brennan passed Daley's ethics violations to City Inspector General David Hoffman. Stone said, "I don't even bother to report ethics violations to the Chicago Board of Ethics as I have done in the past. The Board is run by Daley's hacks. The Ethics Board is one of the layers of protection that Daley's uses to insulate him from being held accountable for his actions. Before his conviction and jail term, former City Clerk Jim Laski said Daley told him he needed to have a layer of protection. "The protection from the Ethics Board is exactly what Laski was talking about."
Aon Corporation is spear-heading Chicago's Olympic bid and has donated more than $2.5 million in goods and services towards helping Chicago host the Olympics. Daley publicly said he wouldn't pay for Chicago's Olympic bid with taxpayers' money, but clearly Aon's $40 million contract is Daley's payment to Aon Corporation, Olympic Committee Chairman Ryan and Aon executive O'Halleran for their political donations and Aon's contributions to Chicago's Olympic bid.
The ties between Aon, Ryan and Daley run long and deep. Mayor Daley's wife Maggie quit her $75,000 year job of running Aon's charitable organization when reporters questioned what she actually did to earn her salary. When one alderman hired the wife of another alderman the reporters called it, "wife swapping." Similarly, Daley swapped his wife's Aon job in exchange for Aon's past and present city contracts.
Frank Coconate, another $75,000.00 political discrimination award winner said, "Daley is a political leopard who won't change his spots. Daley giving Aon a $40 million pin stripe patronage contract to rid the city of patronage is a kick in the teeth to the 1,400 people who received political discrimination awards. Coconate and Stone want to stop the corruption, not the Olympics. Coconate and Stone are seeking to void Aon's contract with the city and have Ryan replaced as Chicago's Olympic Chairman.
Campaign Contributions are Chicago's New Patronage
The conviction of Daley's patronage chief Robert Sorich and the discovery of the Clout List has greatly reduced the number of people in Daley's patronage army. Much of Daley's political war chest comes from large political donations that every other city in America has outlawed. Ryan's $100,000.00 and O'Halleran's $25,000.00 political donations are prohibited everywhere except in Chicago. If Chicago receives the 2016 Olympic bid, Daley will continue to extort campaign contributions from Olympic vendors, businesses, construction companies, etc. and use the money to finance his re-elections and the elections of aldermen who obediently follow him. The Daley corruption cycle will repeat, but this time instead of Daley's patronage workers sustaining Daley's political power, Daley will use campaign contributions from Olympic vendors and businesses to maintain his political might.
No Olympic Committee Oversight
There is no oversight, no safe guards and no financial controls over the Olympics. What's worse we have Mayor Daley's good friend Patrick Ryan in charge of the Olympics. Together Ryan and Daley have combined for indiscretions in the past and they will do so again in the future. The citizens of Chicago will bear part of the cost of the Olympics and Chicagoans will be inconvenienced for several years. The citizens of Chicago have a right to transparency, financial oversight and an Olympics that is free of bribes and payoffs. In the spirit of the Olympics, the 2016 Olympic bid and preparation should be honest, ethical and fair. If Olympic bids and Olympic preparation were held to the same standard as Olympic competition, Chicago would be disqualified for cheating.
We have Daley's foxes guarding the hen house with the largest golden egg the foxes have ever seen. This isn't a sprint for the Olympics. This a dash for cash. We all know who is going to get rich off the Olympics. Daley's wife, Daley's son, Daley's, brothers, Daley's nephew, Daley's friends, Daley connected businesses and Daley's campaign contributors will reap the gold as they have done in the past. Daley doesn't have a political machine; he has a money machine! Unfortunately Daley is manufacturing wealth for his friends and family with taxpayers' money.
The Obama-Daley Connection
I feel sorry for the 176 Olympics athletes who came to Chicago to support the Chicago Olympic bid because they had no idea of the corruption in Chicago. The one person I don't feel sorry for is Senator Barrack Obama who when he endorsed Daley for mayor in 2006 said Daley had rid his administration of corruption. Obama was naïve to believe Daley was going to change his ways. If Obama doesn't have the courage and conviction to stand up to Mayor Daley after 19 years of Daley's well-documented corruption, how is Senator Obama going to stand up to the head of a foreign country who is threatening military action against the U.S.? How ironic that Obama's campaign theme is change, and yet Obama is relying on America's oldest and most corrupt political organization to guide him to the White House If Obama is dead set on facilitating change, Obama should start with changing the corrupt Chicago political culture from which he emerged.
For further information, call Jay Stone at 773-665-4623.
http://www.chicagohypnosis.info/
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Jerome at 12:41 PM on 9/22/2008
The truth is that we are all human, and we all have a family member, friend, or acquaintance who has done something unethical, or continues to do things unethical - be it cheating on their taxes, finishing their basement without getting a permit, etc. Now think about just how many more people politicians know and work with on a daily basis. You can uncover dirt on ANY politician. It's hard to swim without getting wet. What we need to look at is real, true, corruption. Look no further than city hall, where it is hard to find any program that is actually run legitimately. Truth be told, the machine is so well-oiled that I don't even think that half the people involved in the daily affairs of the machine even know that what they are doing is wrong. "Business as usual". If anyone thinks that Obama in the white house will even attempt to change Chicago's corruption, they are smoking something. Although I consider myself a libertarian, and predominately (not always) vote democrat, I firmly believe that McCain in the White House would have Bush and his cronies worried.
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lin at 8:05 AM on 9/23/2008
Lawrence and let there be rain is correct. Ben is inororing history to make his story fly. The Machine has not fundementally changed,its just took on a new look. Let there be rain and Lawrences views are supported. The New Machine, Boss, 1919 Riots, The Mob trials. There are many Books and articles that supports the other views of the Daley Barack connection. Ben has done an excellent job on reporting on the Machines slush funds. For the sake of intellectual honesty,I would be so dismissive of the others views,and their sources.
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Ryan Kelleher at 11:01 AM on 9/24/2008
Ben is awesome. Great work.
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