Bad Poll for Fitzgerald
ArchPundit
and Comments are at the Political State Report.
The 2007 Daley Smackdown
From the comments section:
Considering the general trend in Daley’s opponents, from Harold Washington through Danny Davis through Bobby Rush to Paul Jakes, I predict that in 2007 Mayor Daley will run against the "nine pairs of socks for five dollars" guy from the El.
So what about the rest of you? Who should take on Daley in 2007? Both serious and sarcastic (especially sarcastic suggestions welcomed).
Who Will Daley Hold Accountable?
Sanchez, the streets and sanitation chief or the cop doing his job by giving Sanchez’s driver a ticket?
Pate Philip is really gone
And we know this because a “>gay rights bill made it out of committee. Philip had blocked any vote on this for years. The bill is not sure to pass as some Democrats moved it to the floor who are against it in general.
A Deserved Critique
From a reliable reader (and one whose opinion I respect):
I have read a number of times your obvious admiration for Mayor Daley; indeed, in a recent post you said that your appreciation for him has grown since being exiled to a city that doesn’t work, and that he has molded Chicago into a remarkable metropolis. Although you note occasionaly that he shouldn’t be left unchecked, your and most other people’s admiration of him leaves him just that — unchecked. And there in lies the rub: Mayor Daley has what he has and does what he does because there is no politics in Chicago, which, in effect, means that there is no democracy in Chicago. To be sure, we have elections, but Daley has so effectively neutered his opposition that elections are a sham, a foregone conclusion. Public policy is not debated, the future of the City is not open for discussion, and the Mayor’s agenda cannot be questioned. He is beyond being unchecked — he is a dictator, a benign one for most, perhaps, but a dictator nonetheless.
Democracy is messy; but Daley hates mess. Democracy means you don’t always get what you want; but what Ritchie wants, Ritchie gets. Although many of us — the prosperous ones, the ones who feed at the public trough, the courtiers — benefit form his largesse, his love of the City, many don’t. Those who can’t use the pretty parks because of violence in the streets don’t. Those who need affordable housing don’t. Those who need good schools don’t. Those who need adequate public transportation to get to and from jobs and school don’t.
Visit the Englewood neighborhood, or Robeson High School, or ride the Brown Line.
When democracy fails, inconvenient questions can’t be asked. Like how is it that we can’t find enough money to rebuild schools, or public transportation, yet we can find the money instantly to rebuild Soldier Field, or build the massive boondoggle, Millenium Park. No one can ask about how in the world trees, and flowers, and medians, and wrought iron will be paid for. No one can ask about the Duffs, or Jeremiah Joyce and his clan, or Grace Barry.
Chicago has improved. So have other great cities — but not without having to sacrifice that difficult, messy American institution that, in the end, holds public officials accountable: democracy.
End
Fair enough, and true. I do need to call Daley out more often and I will when it comes up. I hope my bobblehead post on Political State Report makes clear that I do want to see independent voices in Chicago. All of the points above are true.
Part of the reason I think I give Daley so much credit is that I see St. Louis and other midwestern cities struggling with the same problems cited, and yet doing even less than Daley accomplishes. To a point, Daley does more with what he has. That being said, Chicago would be a far healthier place if it had open debates and opposition. Later in the week, I’ll do some flashback posts about Harold Washington and the 1983 race.
What is absolutely unacceptable are his refusal to take questioning seriously ("What do you want me to do, take down my pants?") and his acceptance of shady characters like the Duffs. They are outfit clowns who have no business in the public trough–not only do they cheat taxpayers, but they cheat the workers underneath them.
Denny Gets Mad!
Going to the Calpundit well again…
Denny Hastert is reported to have said:
"What do you want me to do, call the President a liar? George Bush may screw his party. I don’t!" Hastert is reported to have said.
Mr. Fitzgerald is squirming because that means Hastert just might be pissed enough to back Andrew McKenna in the Illinois Republican primary. If Hastert and the President weren’t having problems, I think Rove could clear the field with a strong move–if he has alienated Hastert, he has no leverage.
One Liberal Hawk Sill on Board
But it looks like others are ready to jump ship. I’m the one not looking to jump ship.
Look, I don’t know what the hell the administration thinks it is doing pissing on many of our allies’ legs, but that doesn’t go to what I think the justification for taking out Saddam is. I believe that we will deal with him now or deal with him later. For a whole host of reasons I don’t believe deterrence will work. While Saddam may not be crazy, he isn’t very smart and deterrence requires full rationality on the part of an opponent and from his past actions it is clear that Saddam is not capable of processing information well.
Once I concluded deterrence is highly unlikely to work the question then becomes is there reason to wait? Well, usually there would be, but he is pursing weapons that would make any future conflict harder to fight.
I never had any illusions about Bush giving a damn about democracy (nor about Clinton’s fumbling in Europe as Daniel Drezner points out). Cleaning up Bush’s mess in Iraq, Turkey, Kurdistan (just wait) and several other Arab countries will fall to his successor. However, I’d rather have him get Saddam out of the way to make that fight less bloody and less calamitous.
By far, I’d like Dick Lugar, Bob Dole or John McCain executing this war and cleaning up after. Clearly, in any of those three cases we wouldn’t have alienated our allies and screwed up bribing Mexico and Turkey. And I’d have more trust in the post war Iraqi order. But I’m stuck with Bush.
Brazen George & the Combine
Kevin assumes that Republicans actually liked George Ryan and he is half-right. George Ryan ran as the most conservative Republican Gubernatorial candidate since at least 1972 (and I don’t even remember the ’72 candidate so don’t ask). He picked up some support from the wingnut faction of the party because of his role in killing the ERA years ago as Speaker of the House. He was also the first pro-life Republican Gubernatorial candidate who was pro-life since at least 1972 as well. On the other hand, his openness and overtures to gays and lesbians put the right wing on guard.
By the end of his administration the only people who liked him were death penalty opponents and those who directly owed him favors. Everyone running for office statewide except Judy Baar Topinka distanced themselves from him (oddly, she was the only winner). The beneficiaries of his patronage presumably still like them, but their lawyers have told them to shut up.
By the end of his term, conservatives in the Republican Party viewed him as a profligate spender (and he was), a Communie sympathizer for going to Cuba (actually he just understood what was good for agribidness), a soft on crime pinko of for the death penalty moratorium, a fricken’ evil bastard for the commutations, and a crook (and they are correct).
No Republican office holder is supporting any of this with the possible exception of Pate Philip, who to be pedantic, is no longer an office holder. Philip is implicated in the Fawell trial.
To a degree, these sort of shenanigans aren’t atypical in Illinois. Even between Republicans there have been disputes over last moment appointments by the outgoing Governor. Jim Edgar was criticized for a few in 1998. The person criticizing him?
George Ryan.
Ryan insisted it was his right.
Whether this is a continuing cycle is actually hard to tell. My sense is that Blagojevich won’t have the same leeway. Ryan was so brazen that many people just turned off the whole mess and stopped paying attention. Certainly some of it was that Republicans were losing almost all of their patronage positions, but the Party separated themselves from George so these were largely loyalty paybacks for him personally. In another group of appointees, some Democrats allied with Ryan were given positions as well.
It is always important to remember while there are two parties in Illinois, there is a large overlap of the two parties in the Combine–dealmakers in both parties who are happy to share the pork and patronage with members of the other party, as long as they get theirs. The come from all over the ideological spectrum and they have run the state largely since 1976 when Jim Thompson became governor. Many good things have happened during that time, but a great deal of scams have as well.
I would argue that often times elections in Illinois are the Combine versus reformers. Other times they are different flavors of the Combine. The Blagojevich-Jim Ryan election was probably an election between different flavors of the Combine. Blagojevich is showing some good signs of independence, but frankly, I don’t buy it.
That’s Right
Another Political State Report posting on the Corrections nomination being put on hold.
Slow blogging until Monday probably. But check in…
Accessible Blogging
Paul from CenterPoint points out a problem with blogger templates–quite often it overrides the ability of those with poor site to change text size when viewing a page.
This is an excellent point and I will make the changes the next time I work on my template as well as work on the darkness of my type. Thanks to Paul for pointing out this small issue that is easy to fix. Perhaps we all should take it into account.