An AP story, which is getting picked up all over the place, about Obama’s controversial endorsements of Mayor Daley and Rod Blagojevich ends this way…
Obama‘s decision to support Daley turned off voter Alan Dobry, who‘s part of a Chicago independent-voters group.
“He‘s trying to play with the machine,” Dobry said. “I‘m very unhappy about it.”
They had to dig pretty deep to find that guy. Dobry is not just a “voter,” he’s kind of an infamous former Democratic ward committeeman from Hyde Parke. He has been affiliated with IVI-IPO over the years, but he’s not on the board these days.
Chicago Politics Ward by Ward (1988) has a brief passage on Dobry, who goes back to the old days of fighting Richard J. Daley…
Many of Dobry’s ideas are not shared by his peers on the Democratic Central Committee. For example, he does not bother to maintain a ward office, out of the belief that the alderman is the people’s elected legislative representative and thus the one to whom residents should take their problems.
From what I’ve read and can remember, he sounds like your typical old school, Daley-hating Hyde Park independent liberal. This passage is from Bitter Fruit: Black politics and the Chicago machine (1992)…
Thus, when the Machine’s slatemakers came together, only one of the fifty committeemen supported [Harold Washington over Jane Byrne and Rich Daley], and that was the white committeeman of the Fifth Ward, Alan Dobry.
But Paul Green wrote an illuminating piece about Dobry for Illinois Issues back in 1991…
Their [Tim Evans vs. Toni Preckwinkle 4th Ward] runoff was considered a toss-up until the last week of the campaign. Then came the heat. An Evans worker spotted Alan Dobry, a Preckwinkle volunteer and Democratic committeeman from the neighborhing 5th Ward, posting some racist and anti-semitic pro-Evans flyers in a heavily Jewish Hyde Park neighborhood. The crudely lettered flyers accused Preckwinkle of being part of a secret Mayor Richard M. Daley political plan because her husband is white and Jewish (Preckwinkle, like Evans, is black). Preckwinkle’s husband is white but not Jewish […]
Dobry claimed he was not guilty of dirty tricks. Rather he wanted to inform Hyde Parkers about the low level of Evans’ campaign.
He certainly had an interesting way of “informing voters.”
Even Rod Blagojevich doesn’t call himself a reformer any longer, having jumped neck-deep into patronage hiring and cronyism. But Dobry, who slams Obama for backing the current Mayor Daley, supported Gov. Blagojevich in the last go-around [also from an AP story]…
Blagojevich’s effort to energize the troops will pay off on election day, predicted compaign volunteer Alan Dobry of Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood. “They’ll stand out in the cold for an extra hour or so because they talked to the governor,” he said.
Like the man says, nobody’s got totally clean hands in that town. You touch it, you get dirty.
This is an Obama open thread.
Pingback ArchPundit » Blog Archive » Calling All Gadflies - Monday, Feb 26, 07 @ 4:01 pm:
[…] The AP apparently doesn’t have any real news to dig up so they’ll be interviewing you shortly. […]
- Capt. Obvious - Monday, Feb 26, 07 @ 4:17 pm:
Hard to believe the Governor has his folks out whacking Obama.
Guess anything in possible.
This tends to help confirm the report his folks “leaked” the Rezko lawn story to the Trib.
- NW burbs - Monday, Feb 26, 07 @ 5:45 pm:
Capt. Obvious — could you make a little less sense? Oy.
–
The AP must’ve run out of former Alan Keyes workers to interview for their soap opera digest.
Or maybe the Trib, London Telegraph and other conservative-leaning media have that niche wrapped up.
- Just Observing - Monday, Feb 26, 07 @ 6:20 pm:
Well I wondering when those stories were going to break. What about his non-endorsement of Claypool and his full-scale endorsement of Alexi G?
- Bill - Monday, Feb 26, 07 @ 6:25 pm:
Cap’t,
Alan is a whacko who has been on the wrong side of every camapign for the last 25 years. Don’t try to tie him in with Rod. That is a stretch even for you,obviously.
- Disgusted - Monday, Feb 26, 07 @ 6:29 pm:
Rod who???
- ANON - Monday, Feb 26, 07 @ 6:37 pm:
Regardless of the source, many voters have the same questions regarding Obama’s support of Daley and Blagojevich. Obama has based part of his political identity on ethics, and has been said before in these threads, has done very little to help IL out of its hole, especially last year.
This topic is definately fair game. Instead of pretending he is so busy learning the ways of Washington and not keeping up with Chicago/IL news, Obama needs to address this topic. It would be nice to get some thoughts from him, especially in light of the Rezko indictment and multiple idictments in Daley’s office. He disapointingly doesn’t walk the walk when it comes to this. He puts party over people on this one.
- Rich Miller - Monday, Feb 26, 07 @ 6:42 pm:
Anon, the problem I have is with the source and the way the source was identified, not the rest of the piece. “Just Observing,” this story has been written by many, many others before now, where’ve you been?
- Rich Miller - Monday, Feb 26, 07 @ 6:48 pm:
“Alan is a whacko who has been on the wrong side of every camapign for the last 25 years. ”
Um, Bill, he was on YOUR guy’s side last year, right? lol
- Jack Lord - Monday, Feb 26, 07 @ 7:24 pm:
The Alan Dobry part is not important but the Daley endorsement can haunt Obama–but still on balance it is still a good political move.
It depends on how far the US Attorneys goes.
- Anonymous - Monday, Feb 26, 07 @ 7:36 pm:
Just Observing,
The only thing Alexi was guilty of was being slandered - his tenure will vindicate himself and Obama’s endorsement.
And how about Claypool’s selective endorsements in Aldermanic races, or lack thereof?
- Levois - Monday, Feb 26, 07 @ 10:06 pm:
That story is just a mess. All of the bits and pieces.
- Setting the Record Straight - Monday, Feb 26, 07 @ 10:44 pm:
Obama NEVER came out and publicly endorsed Rod. Not in print, not a commercial, not a press conference.
- Honest Abe - Tuesday, Feb 27, 07 @ 12:03 am:
Obama may have a larger headache to worry about. The British press ran an article suggesting that the Senator created heroic myths about his Kenyan father that do not square with reality and call into question the entire Obama backstory as related to the public at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. If the report is truthful and if the media follows up with more questions, Senator Obama may be caught in a fabrication of Joe Biden proportions. The Daily Mail ran the article and it contains some heavy allegations.
- Bill - Tuesday, Feb 27, 07 @ 6:49 am:
Go Ahead, Rich! Rub it in.
- Way Northsider - Tuesday, Feb 27, 07 @ 7:45 am:
Honest Abe - Just read the Daily Mail article. Don’t see what the revelations are. All the facts are laid out in Dreams from my Father. Obama talks in the book about how what he knew about his father and what he found in Kenya were different. Have you read the book? What is the “fabrication of Joe Biden proportions” you refer to?
- Honest Abe - Tuesday, Feb 27, 07 @ 8:16 am:
The book minimizes the manifold failings of Obama’s father, an absent biological parent who the Senator apparently idolized without knowing him at all. I think that it is odd for Obama to constantly praise this man to the heavens and to continually hold him up as a role model. I think that it is naive to think that there will not be some backlash from people who have heard his speeches and read his books. If “The Daily Mail” article is correct in its depiction of the facts, Obama has some explaining to do. The disconnect here is too great to be believed.
- Rich Miller - Tuesday, Feb 27, 07 @ 8:39 am:
“Honest Abe” in the future if you reference a news article, please include the link. That way your facts can be easily checked. Otherwise, you could just be making this stuff up.
- Rich Miller - Tuesday, Feb 27, 07 @ 8:40 am:
And until you do so, please move along.
- Honest Abe - Tuesday, Feb 27, 07 @ 8:53 am:
Read the article and judge for yourself.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=431908&in_page_id=1770
I find it strange that anyone would dedicate or title a book in honor of such a person.
- Rich Miller - Tuesday, Feb 27, 07 @ 9:08 am:
All I would say to that, HA, is that you can’t choose your parents.
- PaulHina - Tuesday, Feb 27, 07 @ 9:14 am:
“The Daily Mail” is a British tabloid with little to no credibility, and it is considered to be Britain’s most conservative paper. So, I would read the article linked above with a high degree of skepticism.
- VanillaMan - Tuesday, Feb 27, 07 @ 9:20 am:
I really don’t find this “opposition” piece very good. Neither will anyone else.
It looks more like an “innoculation” piece to me. That is, it is so poorly done it gives readers a feeling that there is really nothing to worry about between Daley’s Chicago and Obama.
You can’t buy opposition like that!
- Squideshi - Tuesday, Feb 27, 07 @ 9:51 am:
Obama is looking less and less like the Messiah that everyone is making him out to be every day. I’m waiting to see who the Green Party’s candidate for President will be.
- Honest Abe - Tuesday, Feb 27, 07 @ 12:49 pm:
I cannot get the lyrics of a song out of my head:
“It’s the dirty story of a dirty man and his clinging wives don’t understand, His son is working for THE DAILY MAIL, it’s a steady job, but he wants to be a paperback writer…”
I am not sure how far the Obama express will travel. To be objective, some of his Democratic allies in Illinois have cynical reasons to push his candidacy: it sells papers, it provides cover for local candidates seeking votes in the black precincts and it may help make the Illinois primary something more than a beauty contest. Imagine if candidates would actually have to $pend campaign dollar$ in Illinois again!
That hasn’t happened in decades.
- NW burbs - Tuesday, Feb 27, 07 @ 4:25 pm:
Squideshi,
The only people calling Obama a “messiah” are the conservatives who can’t stand the guy and manifest their hatred through mockery…
The liberals who support Obama do so for a variety of reasons (including several folks who do indeed appreciate Obama for his “charm”, “hopefulness”, etc — but there were just as many conservatives supporting Bush for the same reasons in 2000 and 2004). And almost everyone I know of from the liberal side, whether they support him or not, realize he’s human, foibles and all.
So if, as a Green supporter, you feel a need to also mock Sen. Obama by calling him “messiah” go right ahead. Just understand with whom it puts you in league.
- Squideshi - Wednesday, Feb 28, 07 @ 8:38 am:
“So if, as a Green supporter, you feel a need to also mock Sen. Obama by calling him “messiah†go right ahead. Just understand with whom it puts you in league.”
So far, Obama has done absolutely NOTHING to reach out to Greens. How hard would it be for him to work Instant Runoff Voting or Open Debates into his platform? Unless Obama wants to lift a finger to reach out to us, he shouldn’t expect our support.
- kittykatminou - Wednesday, Feb 28, 07 @ 4:02 pm:
Alexi G will be an issue, as Obama’s endorsement of this corrupt and underqualified candidate was a clear quid pro quo. Just view the campaign contributions of Alexi G’s family. Just follow the money. And Alexi never fully explained the ethical lapses of his family’s bank. Obama has a tendency to ignore the corruption of his supporters, and this will haunt him.