Political activist Jay Stone recently sent out a press release seeking recruits for his latest crusade against Mayor Daley. In it he blasted city officials for awarding a $40 million, five-year “pinstripe patronage” contract to Aon Corporation to help the city make sure hiring is free from patronage and political favoritism. It seems fair to wonder about that deal, as Aon’s founder and retired chairman, Patrick Ryan, is heading up the mayor’s efforts to bring the Olympics to Chicago. But Stone lost me at the end of the release, when he took a shot at Barack Obama for not having “the courage and conviction to stand up to Mayor Daley”—and then essentially endorsed Senator John McCain for president.
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Lord knows Daley has no long-standing allegiance to Obama—he hasn’t significantly helped Obama at any stage of his career. He didn’t endorse him during his successful bid for the state senate or his unsuccessful attempt to unseat Congressman Bobby Rush. He didn’t even back him in the 2004 Senate primary. Daley only endorsed Obama in the presidential campaign because he didn’t really have a choice—he had to look enthusiastic about the hometown guy, especially since he didn’t want to alienate black voters in last year’s mayoral election.
What’s more, Daley has no problem getting cozy with Republicans. In fact, Patrick Ryan is a major Republican donor: he’s given more than $200,000 to the Illinois GOP over the last few years and hosted a fund-raiser for President Bush at his house in Winnetka. In the last year Ryan and his wife have donated thousands of dollars to the campaigns of McCain, Rudolph Giuliani, and Mitt Romney—and nothing to Obama. In 2006, though, he gave Daley $100,000.
Am I disappointed that Obama is not as passionately antimachine as, say, I am? Absolutely. But then I’m just as disappointed in the 70-plus percent of my fellow Chicago voters who keep on electing our mayor no matter what he does. And I’m even more disappointed in our local Republicans, who have deserted their core free-market principals on issue after issue as they fall into line with the mayor. Our Republicans are tough as nails when it comes to entitlements for the poor—got to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and all that—but when it’s time to feed big businesses and developers from Daley’s TIF trough, man, they can’t get enough.
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