Burris and the old guard
Monday, Mar 16, 2009 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Laura Washington’s latest column is a must-read…
It’s a heady time in African-American politics. Presidents, senators and congressmen are feeling the burn. The old political hands are nervous. The young turks are finding their sea legs. The 2010 Democratic primary races for the U.S. Senate and Cook County Board presidency may be petri dishes for a new strain of black political leadership.
Veteran political consultant Delmarie Cobb is a top adviser to Exhibit No. 1 of the old strain, Sen. Roland Burris. I visited her Bronzeville office last week during a pause in her winning battle to keep Burris in office.
“All of a sudden, we’re into this young thing, and anybody who’s been out here needs to be put out to pasture,” she vented. Cobb resents “that somebody would take this kind of knowledge and put it out to pasture.”
We’ve been hearing a lot of that sort of rhetoric lately. It resembles the beginning of the last major shift in Chicago’s black politics in the late 1960s. The New Yorker profile of Roland Burris doesn’t have much new stuff in it, but there are some historical nuggets which suit our purposes…
Daley contracted much of his patronage operation to what was known as the “submachine,” a group of compliant black politicians, led by Congressman William Dawson. Even though Dawson made sure that blacks received a share of government jobs, [Jesse] Jackson and others in the nascent civil-rights movement noted that the submachine had no interest in challenging Daley on broader issues, like fair housing and school
So, the young Turks tried to push the old guard aside, and the old guard pushed back hard. Burris, who was allied with Jackson and ran Operation PUSH for about a year, ran for comptroller as an independent and was trounced in the 1976 primary. He defected to the old guard when he sought the party slating for comptroller two years later…
Alan Dobry, who was a veteran of Chicago reform politics, attended the state committee meeting in 1977. “Roland was trying to get put up for Illinois comptroller,” Dobry recalled. “When he got up and spoke to the central committee, the first thing they said to him was ‘You started out as Bill Cousins’s campaign manager, what about that?’ But Roland assured everyone that he wasn’t an independent like Bill Cousins anymore, and was now a faithful member of the machine. Then they asked where does his committeeman stand on this? Gene Sawyer got up and said, ‘Roland is not an independent; he is a faithful member of the Sixth Ward Democratic Party organization.’ ” (One of the first people Burris hired to his staff as a U.S. senator was Sawyer’s nephew.) […]
According to Bernard Stone, a longtime Chicago alderman, Burris is “a very personable guy, and he never had the reputation of having his hand out. He was always a go-along guy. When he’s run with Party backing, he’s won; when he ran against the Party, he lost. It’s as simple as that.”
So, even though he subsequently ran against Mayor Daley and has since portrayed himself as an independent, he’s really a descendant of the old guard, which eventually made peace with (or coopted, depending on your persepctive) black church leaders. Back to Washington’s column…
Burris and Stroger are creatures of a sclerotic political machine, an operation that historically bred electoral success by ensuring an ethnic balance of go-along-get-along guys. The party has relied on a black candidate — “their” black candidate — to bring in the African-American vote. In 2010, that equation may not add up.
Washington’s column concludes with some observations about Sen. James Meeks’ encouragement of Chicago Urban League President and CEO Cheryle Jackson’s possible US Senate bid against Burris and others…
“That’s not Roland Burris’ seat. Anybody has the right to run,” Meeks says.
“The glass ceiling has to be lifted. At some point, we have to seriously consider qualified women,” he notes, adding, “It will give my daughters something to aspire to.”
That’s refreshing talk in black Chicago, which has been dominated by sexist, tired ward heelers and preachers for far too long.
Hallelujah.
* Related…
* Burris turns up on Blago list of potential fund-raisers