Sunday’s Shootout.
Sunday’s WLS-AM “Political Shootout” will pair State Senator Jim DeLeo (D-Chicago), assistant Senate majority leader with Paul Caprio, conservative movement strategist and director-Family PAC. That’s at 8 p.m. this Sunday.
County Board Dem Switch.
The old order changeth on the Cook county Board presidency. Once the job belonged to party regulars: John Stroger, George Dunne, Dan Ryan, Dick Ogilvie et al. Now the post is about to fall to the influence of black movement leaders, the Jesse Jackson’s and Rep. Danny Davis, who have declared for Commissioner Bobbi Steele while old regular war-horse John Daley decides not to bid for interim board chairman. Is the transition from regulars pol Stroger to one supported by movement leaders, bad? I don’t think so, particularly. Indeed, it’s hopeful because movements are far more malleable than static political forces which don’t represent change. Movements are far more dynamic, more democratic, more susceptible to change. This change should be celebrated! I would think that an accession of Bobbi Steele to the interim presidency and indeed the Democratic nomination would be bad news for the Republicans’ Tony Peraica. Maybe I’m wrong. Your views solicited.
Stylistic Change in Chicago Journalism.
Leave it to the astute David Brooks, the New York Times’ token conservative guy (neo-con, actually), one of the brightest analysts in journalism, to mark the changes in Chicago newspapering which this city’s writers haven’t been sufficiently aware of to note. Brooks, in yesterday’s Times, pointed out the difference which this Blog had earlier registered. It is not long since Mike Royko died, but in his era newspapering recorded the gritty workaday style of the blue-collars and patronage hacks. Now with middle class affluence and the growth of the suburbs, both so-called major newspapers reflect the trends of affluent, college-educated classes. That’s with only one exception which Brooks failed to note: John Kass of the Tribune is the only residual member of the working press to keep faith with the working class Chicagoans. Who else is there? Debra Pickett? Lynn Sweet? Richard Roeper, the oldest surviving 20s swinger kid-type who is in his 40s without the guts to get married?
McSweeney.
When this political season started, the smart money was on Peter Roskam to capture the Hyde seat for sure and David McSweeney to be a long-shot. Roskam still is a good bet to win but he does have a tough go against Tammy Duckworth, the legless female ex-helicopter pilot who was critically wounded in Iraq: but fortunately she is veering to the left with a rapidity that puts her out of the district (not only geographically but philosophically). But McSweeney has captured state-wide attention with his unpragmatic, term-limited tough-minded conservatism. Does the addition of a third party candidate help him? Probably not as much as many think. The candidate is so far left as to notch only a few points off Melissa Bean. But with the changing tide in favor of Republicans anent immigration and the fatalistic loser stand the Democrats are taking on “cut and run” from Iraq, GOP fortunes are definitely improving. McSweeney, though, has the work ethic and luck that marks him a winner—and a leader in the next Congress along the lines of Tom Coburn, all the more so because McSweeney has embraced term limits which insulates him from the temptation to be a careerist.
I thoroughly disagree with your comments on the Cook County board race. Black politicians in Chicago care ONLY about their constituency and seek to pad the government payroll with VASTLY DISPROPORTIONATE numbers of their race (a great many of them incompetent, venal and dishonest). Just check Cook County Hospital, the black-run US Post Service etc.-you'd never know looking at their employees that the County was only 26% black, not 98! It's time to make sure that OTHER groups-including whites!-are adequately represented and their concerns addressed. This can only happen if the black stranglehold on this and other positions is removed, and open to free competition!
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