From the Tribune…
U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (R-Ill.) gave Mayor Richard Daley a political boost today, endorsing the mayor for reelection to a sixth term in office.
“I travel around the country a lot, and I see a lot of cities,” Obama said. “I can honestly say I am always glad to be back home because I don’t think there is a city in America that has blossomed so much over the last couple of decades.” […]
The Daley administration has been beset by hiring and contracting scandals during the mayor’s current term, and Obama said that “I continue to be concerned” about City Hall corruption. But he asserted that Daley has taken action, including strengthening procurement rules and appointing a strong inspector general to produce a “cleaner government.”
“Ultimately, you want to look at the whole record…and I think the city has moved overall in a positive direction,” Obama said at a news conference at Daley’s downtown campaign headquarters.
Sun-Times…
In August 2005, Obama nearly ran into trouble with Daley when he hedged on whether he’d support the mayor for re-election in light of the corruption investigations at City Hall.
Asked then if he planned to support the mayor or if the corruption probes might have given him pause, the senator replied, “What’s happened — some of the reports I’ve seen in your newspaper, I think, give me huge pause.”
An hour later, he called the Sun-Times saying he wanted to clarify his remarks. Obama said the mayor was “obviously going through a rough patch right now.” But he also said Chicago has “never looked better” and that “significant progress has been made on a variety of fronts.” The senator said then it was “way premature” to talk about endorsements because the mayor had not yet announced his candidacy.
Daley didn’t hold a grudge against Obama. He reportedly concluded that the freshman senator had been trapped by a loaded question.
Meanwhile, my syndicated column this week takes a look at the Obamarama phenomenon, (and contains an unfortunate headline that I didn’t write).
This Obama phenomenon is not rational in any form. It is, in fact, almost completely irrational.
As the skeptics continually point out, average Obama supporters know very little about the man they adore. But I’ve noticed that the more exposure he gets, the more people swoon over him. In some ways he’s been able to accomplish on a fairly wide scale what JFK did with my Grandma at that union gathering in Chicago. Millions are personally smitten, and, at least for now, there’s no reasoning with them on this topic.
He’s inexperienced? That’s a good thing. He’s black in a nation that still has a lot of bigots? It won’t matter and actually may help. He’s politically untested? He’ll get all the seasoning he needs on the campaign trail. On and on it goes.
- So-Called "Austin Mayor" - Monday, Jan 22, 07 @ 11:55 am:
I guess if one thinks the Toddler is qualified to run the Cook County Board, one must think that Richard Daley should remain Mayor of Chicago.
It’s consistent — but it makes my mouth taste like puke.
– SCAM
- NW burbs - Monday, Jan 22, 07 @ 12:09 pm:
I always wonder why columnists don’t write more columns about headlines they didn’t write… unfortunate or not.
Might make an interesting topic if you’ve ever got writer’s block, Rich.
- grand old partisan - Monday, Jan 22, 07 @ 12:31 pm:
In a related story, the junior Senator abandoned his plans for a boys’ camp at Willet Creek and joined his senior colleague in supporting the public works deficiency bill.
- Pat Hickey - Monday, Jan 22, 07 @ 12:33 pm:
Dock and Honorable Dorothy are going to be FUMING!
- ChiCountryGuy - Monday, Jan 22, 07 @ 1:02 pm:
“U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (R-Ill.)”
I think the bigger story should be Obama switching parties and the impact it will have in the Senate and in the GOP Presidential field.
I love the Trib.
- vole - Monday, Jan 22, 07 @ 1:10 pm:
The American Idol democracy — selecting celebrity over vision.
- Jeff Trigg - Monday, Jan 22, 07 @ 1:44 pm:
Obama endorses corruption. Again. And again. And again…. When faced with doing the right thing versus political expediency, Obama chose political expediency. That says a lot about his character and what we can expect from an Obama Presidency. Same old, same old.
- ZC - Monday, Jan 22, 07 @ 2:05 pm:
There are a couple of irrationalities about Obama support that bug me, but they’re also kind of human nature, so what do you do.
One irrationality about Obamamania is that, I think at core, a lot of people really believe that a sizeable majority of Americans - 65 percent, 70 percent, maybe 75 percent - deep down, all think the same way about the major challenges and problems facing America. And they think the special interests get in the way of channeling that consensus, and they think Barack Obama can embody it. Right now he’s a canvass where everyone can project their dream of American unity.
Problem is, we just aren’t that unified. And Barack can’t bring us together that way. (What some object to about Hillary is that they know she can’t unify us.) But if that’s an irrationality on the American people’s part, it’s also a very old one, probably inescapable, and may be part of the natural political process of optimism, disenchantment, then optimism again. Barack’s still riding the wave and he may be able to ride it all the way until November 2008.
- Anonymous - Monday, Jan 22, 07 @ 2:22 pm:
I have to disagree with you Rich. Watching the political talk shows this weekend your logic does not hold up. Obama’s numbers are going down. The more people know the lower the numbers. He lost 2 points in the last week. Sorry Rich
- Establishment Republican - Monday, Jan 22, 07 @ 2:28 pm:
Can you say Quid Pro Quo, Mr. Senator?
I knew you could.
- VanillaMan - Monday, Jan 22, 07 @ 2:30 pm:
Quid Pro Quo
- VanillaMan - Monday, Jan 22, 07 @ 2:31 pm:
Oh, I failed to compliment you on your article. Well done - VERY well done!
- The 'Broken Heart' of Rogers Park - Monday, Jan 22, 07 @ 2:37 pm:
Quick, stop the presses, breaking news.
- Eric Zorn - Monday, Jan 22, 07 @ 2:44 pm:
NW burbs: The reason you’re not going to see a columnist write a column about the rotten headlines he or she has gotten over the years is that MOST of the time headline writers are good to us and ALL the time we hope that they will be good to us; will take the extra time and effort to write a good one (it’s not that easy; I’ve done it). Ticking them off by singling out bad headlines is no way to inspire the goodwill that can lead to good headlines. Maybe this has nothing at all to do with this thread. Or maybe, in a way, it does.
- Metcalfe - Monday, Jan 22, 07 @ 2:52 pm:
What is Obama going to say about the Burge torture victims and the innocent people on death row and still in jail?
- Rich Miller - Monday, Jan 22, 07 @ 2:58 pm:
“Anonymous 2:22″ Obama lost two points in a week in one poll that you don’t even cite a year before the Iowa caucuses and he’s going down? lol
- Guilfoyle - Monday, Jan 22, 07 @ 3:04 pm:
Good move politically.
However, criticizing corruption in Kenya or other parts of Africa, but not in Chicago to new benefecactors doesn’s sound like the audacity of hope the typicality of politics–smart politics but politics nonehteless.
If Bill Daley is his advisor, and all the business relationships that go into that and all the past that that involves, is not ending politics as usual or ending money influence in politics but is establishment, big money, big power.
Remember BilL Daley was the Nafta lobbyist, SBC Ameritech, investment bank and the Chicago kiddies monies from CPS in Amalgamated under questionable interest rates. Let alone the ComEd Nuclear power deals or the Fire Commissioner death bed inheritance and conveyance and related issues all publicly reported on but not remembered by most except John Kass.
In terms of a so called Black base, the above noted Burge issue rapped around Daley is not the only issue but a whole slew of racial and good government issues for a supposedly independent, different, and audaciously hopeful and positive and optimisitic politician or supposedly non politician.
- JakeCP - Monday, Jan 22, 07 @ 3:46 pm:
I have to agree with So Called Austin Mayor
I think a part of the African American Community may began to lose trust in him. Bad move.
- Wallace " Gator" Bradley - Monday, Jan 22, 07 @ 6:14 pm:
How can Sen. Obama say that Daley is so wonderful, when he and Cook County States Attrney Dick Devine cover-up the torture of more than 100 African-American males some as young as 13 years of age, at the hands of Jon Burge and other Chicago police officers.
January 8, 2007, Mayor Daley was added as a defendant in the federal torture civil suit {Aaron Patterson vs. Jon Burge}.
WHAT WOULD IT PROFIT A MAN THAT HE MIGHT GAIN THE WHOLE WORLD YET LOSE HIS SOUL.
Wallace” Gator” Bradley
Urban Translator
- Patrick McDonough - Monday, Jan 22, 07 @ 7:36 pm:
Obama really let the blacks down in Chicago. If Obama looks forward to coming back to Chicago, he is not driving in the west side neighborhoods. The west side of Chicago has neighborhoods that are a disgrace. Blacks got set back a couple of more decades thanks to Obama selling his own out.
- Seleisse - Tuesday, Jan 23, 07 @ 12:44 am:
I must disagree with Pastor Jeremiah Wright in stating that Barack Obama running for President would give hope to kids in Hyde Park (maybe depending on what kids) and Ida B. Wells housing project.
First, Barack Obama is not the first African American/Black person to run for President.
Congresswoman Shirley Chislom who I had the opportunity to meet in college. Rev. Jesse L Jackson. On the Republican side Alan Keyes who had a big conservative following. I think even Rev. Sharpton ran but can’t document it.
While I like Barack Obama and think he does bring motivation and hope to people, he is not a role model who resonates with African American children especially those in housing projects or low income.
Barack Obama never knew his Black African father. His father left when he was 2 and he only saw him again one other time. This is unfortunately more typical than not in all races now of an absent father as one radio host called a sperm donor.
Barack Obama never went to Chicago Public Schools or even private or Catholic or Lutheran or Chicago Muslim or Afro-centric schools.
Barack Obama never played nor suffered on the streets of Chicago.
Barack Obama had a privileged life of private schools in Hawaii and never being around urban poverty or actually any Black people, any descendants of slaves.
Barack Obama grew up with his white mother (nothing wrong with that but it is a fact that most project children cannot identify with), his white grandparents, private schools in Hawaii, good neighborhoods, a rich stepfather (don’t let the expatriate school thing fool you)
Barack Obama did not live the American Black experience, nor the Chicago Black experience.
Barack Obama did not have the same experience or sufferings of a child in the projects.
Most Black children in the projects don’t grow up with white mothers, travel internationally, or go to private schools, or end up at Harvard or the US Senate.
Barack Obama is not the descendant of slaves. Barack Obama did not endure nor did his family endure slavery, poverty, racism, bad schools, dangerous streets, being part of a certain racial and cultural community, and psychological realities good and bad.
Barack Obama is hard to identify with if you are poor and Black in America, especially Chicago.
- Bill - Tuesday, Jan 23, 07 @ 7:18 am:
Oh Oh Barack is in trouble now. That great spokesman for the black community, Patrich McDonough, and legendary political powerhouse and urban translator Gator Bradley are upset with his endorsement of the Mayor! There goes the White House!
- Pat Hickey - Tuesday, Jan 23, 07 @ 7:55 am:
The Gator was shown the door at Leo High School along with another GD political scientist Hal Baskin - both exemplary and thoughtful political strategists in the mold of Judge Roy Bean and Edward Teach - “At our first salutation, he drank Damnation to me and my Men, whom he stil’d Cowardly Puppies, saying, He would neither give nor take Quarter”
- Langdon - Tuesday, Jan 23, 07 @ 1:51 pm:
Pat Hickey is more Black and done more for African Americans than Barack Obama.
But I would take Obama over any Republican and over Hilary Clinton.
- Squideshi - Tuesday, Jan 23, 07 @ 2:04 pm:
The image of Obama as the “perfect progressive candidate” is already starting to fall apart.
Endorsing Daley was a bad move on Obama’s part.
- Pat Hickey - Tuesday, Jan 23, 07 @ 2:14 pm:
Obama is the real deal and his endorsement of Daley is very positive sign that he will win the White House. Progressives (those who employ hyper-senstive olfactory metaphors or dyspectic phillipics) not-with-standing, Barack Obama will make a fine President.
- Colin - Tuesday, Jan 23, 07 @ 6:36 pm:
Hickey, always turning a blind eye to corruption and racism.
Too hard on progressives, although they have their faults too.