Just when you thought Richard Daley would serve out his term as mayor for life, a harmonic convergence of ironies and events suddenly leaves him as vulnerable as any mortal politician adrift in a sea of corruption.
The ceaseless drumbeat of scandal after scandal, from multimillion-dollar rip-offs at the loftiest levels of the administration to the lowest municipal timecard cheater, has finally taken its toll, according to the Tribune-WGN-TV poll taken in May. Daley’s favorable job rating plunged from high in the clouds to an ordinary 53 percent, while 57 percent of the public holds him personally responsible for the scandals.
Worse yet, the poll actually puts him marginally behind U.S. Rep Jesse Jackson Jr. in a trial heat far in advance of the 2007 mayoral election–a race for which the congressman claims no current interest. He frequently, however, offers scalding comments on the conduct of city government–something exceptionally rare for a Chicago Democratic congressman–feeding the rumors that he might indeed run.
Further analysis of the poll suggests even greater problems for the mayor: There’s a shift in white racial voting patterns. Daley always owned 90 percent of the white vote, yet he musters only 54 percent in the new poll, while a significant 28 percent remain undecided. Meanwhile, Jackson gets 19 percent of the white vote at this early date. That’s 3 points more than Harold Washington ever garnered in his victories.
Race-related, but positive
We must first ask why, after tolerating generations of endemic corruption in this town, voters are on the verge of rebellion. Like much of Chicago politics, it is race-related, but this time the spin is positive.
A substantial part of Daley’s base in previous victories was racial hostility. Intentionally or not, whether spoken or unspoken, a large part of the white voting public saw him as the last white hope, a bulwark against a rising black tide.
Thus the stream of scandals earlier in his administration took little toll. Most white voters seemed willing to accept the city’s culture of corruption, with all the bribery, clout and cronyism witnessed through the years, so long as Daley “protected” whites from the onrush of black power. But today, for many and varied reasons, white voters appear far more willing than ever before to support a prospective black mayoral candidate–a sign of the continuing reduction in racial-political animosities we saw in Barack Obama’s remarkable sweep of all voting blocs in last year’s Senate primary election.
Among Latinos–a still tiny but potentially pivotal voting bloc that Daley courts devotedly and even provides with its own patronage operation–Jackson holds a 39-35 edge with 25 percent undecided.
Ironically, Daley himself contributed to this improvement in the city’s race relations. He’s made friends with most of the dissident black (and liberal) aldermen and appointed numerous blacks to high posts in both his personal staff and city departments. He supported others for high elective offices, from state’s attorney to secretary of state to president of the Cook County Board. Democratic precinct captains who once dealt out the whole deck of race cards were forced to become agents of brotherhood in later elections. They can’t call for a new deal now.
Unintended consequences
Talk about unintended consequences! Those pivotal white voters are looking at him more objectively, assessing whether it is more important to have a white mayor or a more honest one or simply a better manager. Unfortunately for Daley, the scandals backed him into a corner: If he is not viewed as personally corrupt, he is increasingly seen as responsible for the mounting misdeeds. If he is, as his admirers claim, a master of management, why hasn’t he been able to stem the tsunami of corruption?
For years now, beginning with exposes of Daley’s errant aldermen and staff members, on through indictments and convictions of phony minority-owned businesses reaping millions, on through scandals at O’Hare International Airport, the Buildings Department, the Hired Truck Program, dope-peddling in the water department, the failing blue bag program, even questionable contracts for the wonderful Millennium Park, the mayor used the one-bad-apple excuse and disclaimed any knowledge of wrongdoing. It’s been a bad apple here, a bad apple there, another bad apple over there–pretty soon the public gets the idea that maybe the whole orchard is rotten. Or miserably managed by one widely touted as a master of management.
Worse for him, many of those bad apples and almost all the financial beneficiaries of corruption were his friends, neighbors, contributors, campaign workers and even relatives. Many others came into the orchard through a system rife with clout, favoritism and patronage. The Hispanic Democratic Organization, the administration’s major patronage dispenser, thinly disguised as a minority-rights organization, planted some of the worst of the bad apples.
HDO seems likely to figure in violations of the federal Shakman decree outlawing patronage. It’s about as much a minority-rights organization as the mob-connected felon James Duff’s garbage-collection operation was a minority-owned business. HDO’s founder and leader is a former Daley chief of staff, a lobbyist-lawyer who miraculously manages to land multimillion-dollar city contracts for his firm’s clients.
`Bad apple’ excuse goes on
Just a few bad apples? Even Daley’s corporation counsel admits the city’s hiring system has been “compromised.” The newest in a long line of chiefs of staff says “there are still far too many who are gaming the system and violating the rules if not the law,” thereby becoming the first high-ranking city official even to suggest the problems are systemic.
Yet Daley goes on with the “bad apple” excuse and actually persists in his legal effort to loosen the strictures of the Shakman decree. He appears to want more and better patronage. That means more and better precinct workers, perhaps, for his next election. It has not escaped public attention that more patronage may also mean more corruption scandals for the news media and the U.S. attorney to unearth. As it is, the perp walk of municipal felons threatens to grow as populous as the St. Patrick’s Day parade.
Now add high taxes to the simmering pot.
Homeowners throughout the city went into apoplectic sticker shock when they opened those envelopes containing stratospheric property assessments. Fearing a genuine taxpayer rebellion, the Daley administration backed and filled, suggesting the actual tax increases might not match the ballooning assessments. The new tax bills are still a few months away, but it’s hard to imagine they will not show a substantial increase.
The cost of corruption
The next candidate for mayor, whether it’s Jackson or another serious contender, has simply to draw the lines that connect the dots between patronage, clout and corruption and high taxes. Can’t you just see the TV spots that ask why your taxes are so high and answer the question by pointing to million-dollar contracts for felonious cronies like the Duffs and big bucks for characters such as John “Quarters” Boyle, a central figure in the Hired Truck scandal who was put on the city payroll after serving time for stealing millions from the state? Hey! There’s a cost for all this corruption, and you, the taxpayer, are paying it.
That powerful message can be delivered by Jackson, among others. He is polling 70 percent among African-Americans, who generally vote against Daley. Another 16 percent of blacks are undecided, but history shows they will gravitate to the challenger, whether it’s Jackson or perhaps the popular Clerk of the Circuit Court Dorothy Brown. The most likely winner against Daley would be an African-American, considering their electoral base is the city’s largest, approaching 45 percent of expected turnout. The candidate, of course, would have to be of Jackson’s or Brown’s high stature and not simply run as “the black,” as a string of failed candidates did.
Next most likely winner would be a white reformer such as County Clerk David Orr, who scores very well in the black community. Orr, however, has not shown much interest in higher office in recent years, and the reformist fire in his belly seems to be banked. A maverick from within the regular Democratic organization–what we sometimes call the machine–such as City Clerk James Laski, might not fare well because of his longtime association with the system.
A Latino candidate such as U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, a former alderman who is also speaking up about corruption, or former school board president Gery Chico, would have a much harder time, because the base of Hispanic voters hovers around 10 percent of the city despite a population in excess of 26 percent. Assembling a winning coalition would be very difficult.
Here’s another irony: Thanks to a Daley reform, we now have a non-partisan system of electing the mayor. In a multicandidate race, one must get more than 50 percent of the vote to avoid a runoff. This means that a second black candidate or even a whole slew of contenders–let’s say Jackson, Ald. Ed Smith, Orr, Gutierrez and Laski–would not destroy the leading challenger so long as Daley is deprived of an absolute majority. Under the old system, all that was needed was a simple plurality–which means Daley could have put up black and Latino stalking horses to draw votes away from the challenger and kill him off in the primary election. More unintended consequences.
Furthermore, because the election is in 2007, an off year for most other offices, an incumbent congressman or other official can run without surrendering his or her seat.
One must not forget, of course, that there are many, many positive aspects to Daley’s reign as mayor, and they make a strong counterargument to the issues of clout and corruption. The Tribune poll is only a snapshot in time, and Daley could strengthen his position well before the election–or a candidate of Jackson’s stature might not run.
The news over the coming year and a half, however, will be filled with reports of corruption trials and potentially more exposes and indictments. Daley should be very worried as more Chicagoans note the old Russian proverb, “The fish rots from the head down.”
