From 1976, when Mayor Daley gave Jimmy Carter a less-than-stellar election effort |
To
be honest, Carter prevailed because the stink of Watergate hovered over the
nation – leaving a lot of people turned off to the political party of Richard
Nixon.
ANYBODY
WHO WON the Democratic primary was likely to win the general election in that
Bicentennial year.
Amongst
our own local political trivia, it ought to be noted that 1976 was one of the
fluke years.
It
was one of only two election cycles during the 20th Century (1916
was the other) in which someone managed to win a presidential election WITHOUT
taking Illinois.
In
what was Cook County “Boss” Richard J. Daley’s last election cycle on the
national stage (he died one month later), Illinois’ votes in the Electoral
College went to then-incumbent President Gerald R. Ford.
MAKING
THE LAND of Lincoln one of the few places that actually did vote to have Ford
as our nation’s chief executive.
Carter
took only 53 percent of the vote in Cook County, meaning all the rest of the
state (outside of a few sparsely-populated Southern Illinois counties) was able
to gang up on Chicago and put the state into the Republican column.
The
reports back then indicated that Daley didn’t think much of the idea of a
Southerner like Carter, and doubted he had much appeal to working-class
Chicago. Which resulted in the lackluster effort by the political organization
to turn out the vote.
There
also were the reports about how Daley felt insulted at the Democratic National
Convention that year when his big public moment was to attend a press
conference with Miss Lillian – as in Jimmy Carter’s mother.
CONSIDERING
SHE WAS the one with the sassy personality, it would have made the aging Daley
come across like the grouchy ol’ man from Bridgeport – telling the kids to keep
off his lawn.
Or
perhaps to have the cops parked on the block to keep watch on his bungalow do
it for him?
WHITE: Will he finally retire come '18? |
But
Carter went on to win his one term in office – one that still gives the
conservative ideologues material for their rants and rages. So much that those
who felt compelled to use Fox News Channel websites to read the story to make
crude insults about the man!
Back in those days when Carter and Daley were at the top of the pecking order, one of the lower-rungs was Jesse White, who had just finished serving his first term representing a piece of Chicago in the Illinois House of Representatives.
AN
OFFICE HE held through 1993 – when he got himself elected to what locally was a
higher post; Cook County recorder of deeds.
Then,
in the 1998 elections, White won the post that was supposed to allow him to
retire on top – he became Illinois secretary of state at age 64. A term there,
and he could go out in style.
Except
that White has managed to keep that post through five terms. Although he said
Thursday he has no intention of running for term number six come the 2018
election cycle. Retirement for White would come at age 84.
Although
I found it interesting to learn he intends to remain active by continuing to
operate the Jesse White Tumblers, the gymnastics group that tries to give
inner-city youth something to do.
JUST
AS HOW Carter told reporter-types he wants to be able to think he can carry on
with his charitable works even while receiving his medical treatments.
Some
people just seem to want to keep busy. Which may be why they are remembered
long after most of us are forgotten?
-30-
For
what it is worth, following is a commentary I wrote for United Press
International from Springfield, Ill., at the end of Jesse White’s first week in
January 1999 of what could wind up being his 20-year return to the Illinois
Statehouse scene.
Around the Statehouse
White’s Statehouse
‘return’ well-received
By GREGORY TEJEDA
SPRINGFIELD, Ill.,
Jan. 18 (UPI) – When Jesse White gave up an Illinois House seat and a career in
state government in 1992 to be a Cook County government official, he was
following the Chicago rulebook about moving up in politics.
But the Cook
County recorder of deeds return last week to the Statehouse scene made him one
of Illinois’ most popular politicians these days.
“I’m glad to be
home,” White, 64, says of his return to the state payroll when he was sworn in
as Illinois secretary of state.
Democrats routinely
gave him enthusiastic rounds of applause and cheers during his public
appearances last week. Even Republicans are on the White bandwagon.
Part of the appeal
is the bipartisan political rhetoric that flowed through Springfield last week.
Once the General Assembly and state government has to start doing things for
people, the blatant praise will pass.
White’s popularity
from Democrats is due to the party’s lack of anyone holding a state
constitutional office during the past four years.
Now, a Democrat
controls the agency that has many jobs around Illinois and deals with licensing
motorists – the function that brings most people into routine contact with
state government.
“He’s looking mighty
good up there,” state Rep. Art Turner, D-Chicago. Noted during legislative inauguration
ceremonies where White presided. “It’s nice to have one of our own in a
position of power.”
But White’s record
of community service, including the nearly 40 years that he has headed the
Jesse White Tumblers gymnastics team and other work he has done to benefit
inner-city kids in Chicago, also is a factor.
It is hard for
even the most cynical political observer to bad-mouth someone with White’s
social work background. One Statehouse observer says White, “already was an
American hero. Now, he’s an American hero with 1,000 patronage jobs.”
One should not
doubt that White knows how to do politics. Already, he is arranging to put failed
lieutenant governor nominee Mary Lou Kearns on his state payroll.
White also is
playing the Chicago political game, trying to influence the choice of his
successor as recorder of deeds.
White is backing
Darlena Williams-Burnett, the wife of a Chicago alderman, even though Cook
County Board President John Stroger and other officials prefer state Rep.
Eugene Moore, D-Maywood.
White also became
the first newly-elected pol to create a mini-scandal of sorts by offering a key
financial post in the Illinois secretary of state’s office – and its $70,000
annual salary – to his daughter, Glenna.
But political
observers are putting all that aside. Many are recalling White’s cooperation and
willingness to support newly-elected colleagues during his 16 years in the
Illinois House.
He’s close enough
to them that state Rep. Joel Brunsvold, D-Milan, quips White can still be used
by the Illinois House softball team, which has not been able to beat the state
Senate team in years.
White played
baseball in the Chicago Cubs minor league system in the 1960s, and remains
athletic. But it is his Cubs connection that led to what was the closest to a
hostile comment made about White all last week.
Illinois House
Speaker Michael Madigan – speaking like the life-long Chicago Sout’ Sider that
he is – says, “the only mistake (White) ever made in his life was to play with
the Cubs, instead of the White Sox.”
-0-
Copyright 1999 by
United Press International.
All rights
reserved.
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