* Apparently, Wal-Mart got the message from last week’s city council races…

Despite post-election chest thumping, the first signs of a potential compromise are emerging in the political war between Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and union-led advocates of a big-box minimum wage bill.

Sources on both sides say they’re willing to sit down and talk at length, and they raise the possibility of a deal in which Wal-Mart would get zoning approval needed for more Chicago stores in exchange for agreeing to support a wider minimum wage bill that applies to more than the super-sized retail outlets known as big boxes.

But not everybody is convinced that Wal-Mart wants to talk turkey…

One top labor leader, Ron Powell, president of Local 881 of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, says he would “have to think about” such a proposal and carefully examine its details. Mr. Powell says he doubts Wal-Mart is interested in any compromise.

Another union leader, Chicago Federation of Labor President Dennis Gannon, says he needs to talk to his partners in the coalition that pushed the big-box bill. The main thing needed is a willingness to talk, Mr. Gannon adds. “Wal-Mart has made a decision not to have a dialogue,” he says. Mr. Scott denies that.

* My syndicated newspaper column takes a look at some municipal races…

The real electoral surprise last week was not in Chicago, where five tired, old incumbent hack aldermen went down to defeat. The big shocker was the Carbondale mayor’s race, where Sheila Simon — the daughter of the late U.S. Sen. Paul Simon — was trounced by Republican incumbent Brad Cole.

* Kristen McQueary takes a look at last-minute mailers and ads against a local property tax referendum and is not pleased…

The problem with these groups — or perhaps the political genius of them — is that they tango beneath the radar screen until days before the election. Then they surface, blast misleading information from the barracks, and go back into hiding until next time.

Bottom line: Beware of last-minute mailings, especially if they don’t include names and phone numbers of the originators. They’re sent the weekend before an election for a reason.

* Color Carol Marin skeptical…

So when I read what Jackson told Sun-Times City Hall reporter Fran Spielman last week, I had some reservations. ‘’The bullies have left the Council. That pleases me greatly,'’ intoned Jesse Jr.

Really? I don’t think so.

The real bullies aren’t the ones who walk with a swagger stick. The real bullies stroll around like statesmen. They like to run silent and deep, knowing precisely how to kill an ordinance, stall a debate, and stick it to earnest freshmen.

Let’s hear it for the Daley Five.

There’s 14th Ward Ald. Ed Burke, the Machiavellian crown prince of Daley’s kingdom who’s had a near 40-year lock in office. The mayor doesn’t like him or vice versa, but they see the same goal line. Burke has huge power as chairman of the Finance Committee. Huge money, nearly $7 million in his political kitties. And an entourage of six Chicago police plainclothes bodyguards who work in two-man, round-the-clock shifts, solicitously holding his coat and getting his door at taxpayers’ expense.

After Burke, there’s 33rd Ward Ald. Dick Mell, who runs the Rules Committee; 36th Ward Ald. Bill Banks, who controls the powerhouse Zoning Committee; 29th Ward Ald. Isaac Carothers, who’s in charge of Police and Fire. And there’s recently re-elected 50th Ward Ald. Bernie Stone, who may be old but can still kick your knees out in a fight.

* Laura Washington takes a look at a major factor in last week’s elections…

Three actors have turned Chicago politics on its ear: Labor, Junior and the New Black Vote. […]

That brings us to the New Black Vote. Is it my imagination, or have black voters been poorly served by their elected officials? Remember, it was black voters who put the Toddster in charge of Cook County government. We voted him in, and now he’s laying off nearly 500 doctors and nurses who care for the county’s poor. We voted him in, and he’s hiring more relatives and public relations flacks while shutting down the county’s long-term care at Oak Forest Hospital.

This is the beginning of the end of the age-old argument in black politics that “you don’t want to put a brother out of a j-o-b.” Our elected officials have to deliver.

People in Madeline Haithcock’s ward couldn’t get her to respond to the simplest of complaints. People in Dorothy Tillman’s ward knew they paid for the edifice she built in honor of Harold Washington, but it is run by Tillman’s daughter. They live near 47th Street and the L, where they’re afraid to walk in the dark. […]

It is a dangerous time to be a black hack in Chicago.

* And the Tribune looks at the money trail…

Seven of the 12 winning candidates received 50 percent or more of their campaign funding during the runoff period from either organized labor or groups allied with Daley. Campaign spending equated to $50 a vote in some races, with totals more typically seen in campaigns for higher offices.

Elections for aldermen, the most local of public offices, once were intimate face-to-face exercises in retail politics, with candidates spending tens of thousands of dollars in a big race. But under the state’s porous campaign-finance rules, candidates have gorged on contributions, which pay for more sophisticated operations featuring slick mail brochures, automated telephone calls and advertising on radio and television. Some labor-backed council candidates were able to import workers from the East Coast to walk in wards — jobs traditionally taken by volunteers, many with city jobs.