Referencing this column: http://chicago.straightdope.com/sdc20090514.php
The idea behind the Combine isn’t that every Chi/IL pol is corrupt, but that the ones who aren’t don’t get the support they need to get elected to high office.
Two good examples of this: 1) Peter Fitzgerald, an independence-minded Republican who used $6 million of his own money to get elected as a U.S. Senator, ticked off the Combine by appointing outsider Patrick Fitzgerald (no relation) as US Attorney. Patrick’s uncorruptibility and general competence is a terrible turn of events for Combine pols. As a result of this and similar actions, Peter F was not supported by the state GOP for re-election and chose to step down, leading to Obama taking the seat in 2004. Had the GOP supported him, Fitz might have retained the seat for the party and served the citizenry well (and Obama would not have been in a position to run for POTUS two years later) – but the Combine does not care about party or country, only its own existence.
- Paul Vallas was appointed by Mayor Daley to fix the public schools, which he did extraordinarily well without enriching himself in the process. He was widely regarded as a competent and honest pol when he ran for Governor in 2000. As such, he lacked the support of the Mayor and could not break out of the pack in the Dem primary. The Dem contender, Glenn Poshard, had no name recognition in the city (where the state’s Dems are) and lost to Ryan despite rising charges of the latter’s corruption (similar to Blago in 2006). Vallas later left the state and is doing a great job for some other state – he doesn’t seem inclined to come back.
It should be noted that Daley, like his father before him, is not driven by vast monetary wealth, does not aspire to higher office, and has never had a whiff of a sex scandal. Any corruption that can be pinned on his administration is based on maintaining power by rewarding loyal followers and crushing would-be opponents. When maintaining a corrupt state is the only goal of corruption, it’s very difficult to dismantle it.
A final note on Chicagoans’ attitude about corruption: a lot of them think it helps the city run efficiently. If you “support” your alderman you have a place to go to solve problems like potholes in front of your house or cutting through red tape to run your small business. In a corruption-free city, there’s nowhere to turn when the garbage doesn’t get picked up or you need a zoning variation. I don’t necessarily subscribe to this theory, but what do i know–I’m a suburbanite.
Does Cecil know John Kass? That’s a charity auction lunch I’d bid on.
Some related questions: Does Mayor Daley really hate John Kass? Has Daley offered TIF funding for Wrigley Field if Kass is removed? Why wasn’t Blago out for Kass’ blood instead of that editorial guy’s?
The Chicago corruption mystery I don’t get is how Daley has survived years, literally years, of Kass and the Trib pointing out Daley’s interconnectedness with guys without Pat Fitzgerald nipping at his toes.
(As an aside, I think I prefer the more genteel family friendly stylin’ of the phrase “bleepin’ golden”–you really can’t have “fucking golden” embroidered on the back of your velour jogging suit.)
I spent my first 40 years living in Chicago and its sububs. I grew up in the city itself, not in suburbia, and didn’t move to the suburbs until I was in my 30’s. My feeling is that Chicago, like most cities, has a distinct cultural personality. In Chicago’s case, it is somewhat of a split personality. On the one hand, you have a conservative, pragmatic personality reflective of its Midwestern roots–it is, after all, the regional capital of the Midwest. The other side of the personality has its roots in the citiy’s earliest days–this is sort of a Wild West, frontier town, “anything goes” mentality. Much of understanding Chicago’s tolerance for corruption can be gleaned from understanding “the art of the deal,” as I call it–the belief that anything in Chicago can be worked out with enough effort and enough cash behind it.
It is, perhaps, the Midwestern pragmatic personality that tolerates the corruption practiced by the Wild West cowboys… in Chicago, most folks have always felt that as long as the streets are clean, the streetlights work, and the garbage is picked up every week, what the politicians do the rest of the time is of little consequence. It’s an inherent part of the culture, not something easily malleable. Remember Mayor Kennelly, the one-term mayor in between machine politician Ed Kelly and machine politician Richard J. Daley? Mike Royko’s comment about him summed up Chicagoans’ attitudes perfectly: “The voters exposed him as a reformer, and kicked him out.”
Man, I miss Royko–there’s been a pretty fair stable of Chicago columnists over the years, but he was the man; and John Kass is his heir (Cecil getting his own category).
Further to the stuff recently discussed about the future of print journalism, here is Royko’s opinion re the internet:
"It’s been my policy to view the Internet not as an ‘information highway,’ but as an electronic asylum filled with babbling loonies.”