The White House will be run like Chicago

10 December 2008

Clinton brought Arkansas to Washington, and Texas followed Bush. Now, says Alexandra Starr, Obama is bringing the take-no-prisoners politics of Al Capone’s city to the Beltway

This is an approach that has been employed to great effect in his hometown. Daley Sr often co-opted former opponents with jobs and contracts. And after his son, Richard M. Daley, won the mayoralty in 1989 despite drawing just 7 per cent of the African-American vote, he unveiled an administration where minorities made up half of the 24 members.

Calculated munificence is just a part of the Chicago modus operandi, of course: corruption still factors into the equation. Just this week, Governor Rod Blagojevich was arrested for attempting to sell the appointment to the President-elect’s now vacated Senate seat to the highest bidder. Three of the last five Illinois governments have been indicted. Obama himself has never been tarred as a machine candidate. In fact, he is one of a handful of politicians of his generation who scaled Illinois’s power hierarchy without a nepotistic connection to the old organisation. Blagojevich is the son-in-law of a powerful local politician. Two people who are purported to be eager to settle into the governor’s mansion — state attorney general Lisa Madigan and state treasurer Dan Hynes-— are respectively the daughter of the speaker of the Illinois house of representatives and the son of a former Illinois state senate president. Four years ago, Hynes attempted to become the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate, losing to Obama.

The fact that the president-elect was able to claw his way to the top in Illinois without a (literal) political daddy to pave the way is testament to his skill. He’s proven an astute student of his adopted town’s politics, and he will bring the iconic Chicago mix of an above-the-fray public persona with hard-as-nails political manoeuvring to the White House. You can take the politician out of Chicago, but you can’t take Chicago out of the politician.

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Anthony

December 14th, 2008 4:14pm Report this comment

"The fact that the president-elect was able to claw his way to the top in Illinois without a (literal) political daddy to pave the way is testament to his skill."

Yes, but what sort of skill is that? Toby Harnden in The Telegraph explains:

"Obama won his first election not by appealing to the better angels of the voters’ consciences but by successfully challenging the signatures on the proposal forms of each of his challengers, thereby ensuring that he ran unopposed."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/3725976/Chicago---Americas-most-theatrically-corrupt-city.html

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