Not
that I think Claypool is incompetent. He did hold the very same position twice under
Mayor Richard M. Daley. He’s been around a number of local government
positions. He knows how things operate.
IT’S
JUST THAT the circumstances under which Claypool was picked by Emanuel actually
amuse me.
Let’s
not forget that Emanuel is now the guy whom all the good-government types
demonize. He’s the ultimate political hack, as far as they’re concerned. They
desperately wanted to dump him in this month’s municipal elections.
Except
that Emanuel was the candidate with the big bucks that allowed him to spend the
living daylights out of opponent Jesus Garcia – who had become a darling of
those people who like to think they’re the good-government types.
Now
Emanuel turns to Claypool to make sure things get done the way he wants them
to.
YET
I CAN remember back in 2010 when Claypool ran for Cook County assessor,
ultimately losing to Joe Berrios.
Berrios
managed to win that election cycle despite being demonized for being a
political hack – a walking ball of conflicts of interest. The guy who conducted
himself in ruling on tax appeal cases in ways that made it clear he was getting
some sort of benefit (if not quite criminal in nature) that enriched himself.
Claypool’s
election as assessor was supposed to be the move that would save us from the
political hack days of old – the days when now-corrupt behavior was commonly accepted
as standard practice.
The
fact that a majority of voters picked Berrios in that election was supposed to
be some sort of sign of our political stupidity – just as some, I’m sure, think
the fact that Rahm Emanuel took 56 percent of the vote (not far off from those
pre-season polls that said he’d take 58 percent) is a sign that we STILL haven’t
learned any better.
DOES
THIS MEAN that Claypool, who also ran the park district once and also served on
the board of appeals that handled tax cases, has gone from being the goo-goo to
being the guy who’s going to keep “politics as usual” operating in local
government?
It’s
probably more a piece of evidence that the people who were ready to anoint
Claypool to political sainthood some five years ago were seriously
over-exaggerating his good government sensibilities.
If
he’s able to work with Emanuel – who actually was the guy who got him into the
CTA position that he’s held in recent years after he lost that assessor
election – then he’s probably got a practical politics streak. Although it
could also mean that some of those practical political people also have a touch
of government altruism flowing in their veins.
Although
I do find one bit of irony. Berrios managed to get re-elected despite all the
goo-goo griping because his Puerto Rican ethnic origins made him attractive to
the Latino segment of the electorate.
THE
SAME SEGMENT that this time around was the hard-core base of the Anybody But
Rahm voters. Which amounted to all of 44 percent of the vote this month!
And
which is what can make the Latino electorate unpredictable – because it often
splits between those who want to be practical and back the winner and those who
have an ideological streak for what they perceive to be the right thing.
Let
us hope that Claypool, in trying to run Emanuel’s city government operation in
a professional manner, can strike some sort of balance. That ultimately is what
would benefit Chicago as a whole.
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