For many reasons, I’ve been thinking about former mayor Jane Byrne a lot lately.
As you can imagine, the pickings are slim because so many politicians are afraid of Emanuel and his money. As one operative put it: “If you put your dick on the table, they’ll cut it off.”
Anyway, what we have here is Chicago’s version of a political catch-22. Any politician with the name and standing to take on a powerful mayor knows it’s crazy to take on a powerful mayor. And since no voter wants to vote for a crazy person, they vote for mayors whose policies they don’t like—which is even nuttier than voting for a crazy person.
Black activists and politicians assailed Frost as a Judas who sold out his people. “We come out of a heritage of slavery,” said Congressman Ralph Metcalfe. “We come out of a heritage of servitude. It isn’t going to be easy working that heritage out of our blood.”
“Over at the Hall, they were amused and contemptuous of Jane Byrne’s lonely race against the power of the Machine,” Bill and Lori Granger wrote in their book Fighting Jane. “Alderman Eddie Burke told his captains that Jane reminded him of his Aunt Bessie, always fussing. . . . When they met together with their shiny suits and big cigars, they made jokes about the ‘menopausal bitch’ who was going through her change of life in public.”
As she paused to think, Alderman Beale, clearly enjoying himself, hummed the tune played on Jeopardy while everyone’s waiting for questions to be answered.
