As someone who knows Edwin Eisendrath, I feel compelled to respond to Scott Collins’ piece, “What makes Eddie run?” (Tempo, Jan. 26).
One might reasonably have looked forward to a discussion of how an elected city official, tapped by the president to tame the nightmarish regional HUD office, plans to bring the administration’s housing ideas to the streets of Chicago. Throw in some reaction from community and housing groups who know his interest in housing is anything but newfound, and you might have had an enlightening article.
Instead, readers were once again served the warmed-over wealthy, Harvard-educated, yuppie-upstart, doomed-for-life-for-challenging-an-incum bent-member-of-Congress piece. This story is no more accurate or insightful now than it was four years ago.
Here’s a suggestion for the next person who wants to recycle this story: Get over it. The voters did in 1991 when they rewarded Eisendrath’s City Hall record by re-electing him alderman by nearly a 2-to-1 margin.
The end result is the Tribune missed an opportunity to explore how Eisendrath will play a role in implementing new federal housing policies that will affect thousands of residents of Chicagoland.
