I am not sure if this question has a factual answer, so it’s here.
I am a former Chicagoan (be-in as I was born and raised in the Greater Chicagoland Metropolitan Area, go Bears, praise Ditka) and I threw a comment into another thread about Daley and his green roof. I had just seen all about this silliness tonight on teevee and I am wondering, does he have national ambitions? Because this sure sounds like him screaming “Notice Me! Notice Me!”. He is acting like our own Villaraigosa, a guy we are all sure is using the LA Mayor’s office as a stepping stone to the statehouse (and beyond? :eek: ) .
But I figured Daley was a Chicago kind of guy and would stick it out as long as he could as Mayor and probably retire into elder statesman status or die in office as did his pop. So, on this Chicago centric board, what say ya’ll. Does he? Or is he just genuinely into this stuff? Either way, I bet Daddy is rolling in his grave!
No. Little Richie is just an imperfect carbon copy of his daddy. He, like his old man, carries a lot of weight nationally but only because of his tremendous power base here in Chicago. Were he to venture out with ambitions on a national level he’d flounder and embarrass himself into oblivion. I’m sure he’s content to remain “mayor for life” right here where he is safe and protected from himself.
So, Ok, is he a good mayor? I would like to think Chicago is in good hands. Last time I was dere, de place looked kick ass. So, everyting ok? Oh, and go Bearz!
Well, it depends on whether you are concerned with methods, or results! The city is in pretty good shape, for the citizens, but it is really, really rife with corruption. I won’t claim necessarily that Daley is responsible for it all, but he doesn’t seem to be concerned with stopping it.
But it is a great city…come back and visit sometime!
I was talking to some friends about this once and we decided that governor of Illinois would be a step down for Daley. Someone else would get direct control over the city and in return he gets to be governor over a bunch of rural communities, farms and some municipalities like Rockford and Champaign?
I’m not putting those places down, but they don’t seem to be the kinds of locations Daley is really interested in. It’s hard to do Big Important Things in Effingham, Illinois and that’s what Daley likes to do. Lasting legacy symbols like iron street lamps and turning airports into parks and great big buildings and putting vegetation on building roofs.
I love the fact that more than half of the time that Ritchie is shown on the news he looks like he’s just woken up from a nap and forgotten to comb his hair before going in front of the cameras. IMHO, he’s mayor until he either dies or doesn’t want to be. There’s no serious opposition to him in the elections and things go on every day that might otherwise sink another mayor which he either shrugs off as clueless or gets pissed that people are asking and they back down.
Luckily for him he has a constant distraction from himself because the city and county government is constantly going down in flames in one way or another (Todd Stroger comes to mind as a current example of someone that will be on the news ahead of Daley every night right now thanks to his budget that serves only to enrich his cronies at the sake of medical and legal necessities). Yes, Chicago, and for that matter Illinois is crooked as they come, but at least we’re somewhat open about it.
