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A while back I was chastised by a reader for ignoring Barack Obama’s willingness to kowtow to the local machine. I argued, more or less, that anyone who’s going to be president in this country is going to have to sacrifice some of his or her progressive bona fides. As objectionable as Mayor Daley is to some, he’s a powerful and arguably beloved leader, so staying on his good side might be worth the tradeoff for someone with Obama’s ambitions.
“So my gradual drift towards joining up with the Obama camp has been delayed once more. It’s hard to explain to non-locals why I’m so angry at him, and I don’t expect anyone who lives in a place with more or less functioning representational government (e.g., Wisconsin) to understand the extent to which Chicago is a banana republic. In retrospect, it was naive of me to imagine that Obama could have helped us, but I don’t think it was too much to expect him not to do any harm.”
