40/20 – It’s the key to comprehending Daley and his two-decade mayoral legacy

It is a fact that has been stated often in many contexts throughout the years. Yet I believe it is one that cannot be underestimated in comprehending how Richard M. Daley managed to serve as mayor of our home city for just over two decades.

The fact relates to Daley’s ability to make appointments to fill municipal vacancies; including seats on the City Council when they become open.

THAT IS WHERE the “40” and “20” come in. During his 22 years as mayor, Daley got to hand-pick almost 40 individuals to serve as aldermen. Of the current City Council (the one that ceases to exist Monday as the newly-elected aldermen take over), Daley put just over 20 of them in those posts.

The point of those facts is that the council consists of people who owe their political existence to Richard M. Daley. Many of them may well have managed to get themselves re-elected. But they had the advantage of incumbency because of Daley’s gift.

They owed him, and they repaid him by being a virtual rubber stamp. It’s so much different than the days of the mid-1980s, when the racial hang-ups caused 29 (of 50) aldermen to openly revolt.

It’s easy to govern when you don’t have the City Council behaving as an independent government chamber. If it had ever truly behaved like the legislative branch of government (to Daley’s executive branch), we would have had a significantly different past two decades in Chicago.

I DON’T KNOW whether that would have been better or worse for our city. It is what it is. Just like it will be an advantage for Daley’s replacement, Rahm Emanuel, that 13 of the 50 aldermen in the new City Council will be newcomers with no ties to the past.

But what I will remember from the years of Daley the younger is the degree to which things didn’t go smoothly whenever Hizzoner Junior had to deal with someone outside of the city proper.

Daley couldn’t appoint the individuals who served on the International Olympic Committee and who used their power to knock Chicago out of the running early on – thereby clearing up the chances that the 2016 summer games that Daley wanted held in Chicago instead will be played in Rio de Janeiro.

Daley also had a governor for about one-third of his term in office whom some might think was openly hostile. It was the constant rejections that Jim Edgar imposed on so many desires of the mayor that got Edgar the nickname, “Governor No.”

IT WASN’T SO much that Edgar hated Chicago as much as he was a parochial creation of Illinois state government; just as narrow-minded as Daley was capable of being about municipal government.

During “the Edgar years” that dominated the 1990s, Daley was the guy who couldn’t get anything – even though his basic approach to the job was the same as it was in later years when he had more sympathetic governors to cope with.

No casino on the lakefront. No park near the South Loop at Meigs Field. And he had to keep coping with talk of building a new Chicago-area airport (which everybody agreed was needed) somewhere outside of Chicago proper.

That was something Daley didn’t desire. Yet when he had to deal with government entities that he couldn’t hand-pick, he couldn’t influence them. If anything, his very Chicago Sout’ Side persona was what motivated many to openly go against him.

AS THINGS STAND, if Chicago ever does get that new airport, it is going to be way out in Will County, past the point that even the Metra trains go to. Daley didn’t want that, and his talk of putting a new airport near Lake Calumet never went anywhere in the Illinois Legislature – despite how some of us want to believe he was an all-powerful political control freak.

It’s also not like Daley was getting anywhere in his mid-1990s dream of turning Northerly Island on the lakefront from a small airstrip named Meigs Field into a public park that could be  a jewel of the city and combine with Grant Park to create a truly unique urban open space.

Let’s be honest. The Legislature had dumped all over Daley. The courts were more than willing to back the state.

The only reason that Meigs Field no longer exists today is because Daley pulled a hard-hearted act when he ordered the air strip’s midnight destruction one night about a decade ago.

EVEN THOUGH I personally sided with Daley back in those days and thought he and the city had the right to let the Meigs Field lease lapse without renewal so that the land could be turned into a park, it’s hard for me to see anything noble or politically skillful about Daley’s handling of the incident.

He behaved like the equivalent of a spoiled child who had just lost a game of Monopoly – he kicked the game table over, scattering the board and game pieces all over the room.

So for all the people who are writing commentaries these days telling about Daley the great statesman with a vision for the city who helped beautify Chicago immensely, what I see is someone who needed the “game” rigged in his favor in order to succeed. Which makes me wish it could be possible for Mel Brooks to play the part of Daley, should they ever try to make a movie about the mayor’s life.

Brooks, after all, was the guy who in “History of the World, Part I” gave us (among many characters) a King Louis XVI who arrogantly repeated throughout his portion of the film, “It’s good to be the king.”

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EXTRA: China trip another Daley “last”

DALEY: His final mayoral sojourn

Richard M. Daley has managed to work in potentially his last foreign trip as Chicago mayor. He’s headed for China.

Daley will be leading a delegation to Beijing to try to promote stronger business ties between the two cities, which actually strengthens business ties between the two countries as well.

THIS TRIP WILL be Daley’s fifth to China during his 21-plus years as Chicago mayor. It also brings a sense of payback, since China President Hu Jintao included our city in his own visit earlier this year to the United States.

Which keeps alive the idea that we’re going to be giving much attention in coming weeks to all the “lasts” that will take place during the Daley administration – which runs through early May, at which time Rahm Emanuel officially becomes our city’s mayor.

Daley did his last St. Patrick’s Day parade as mayor last Saturday (five days before the actual holiday), then announced his last foreign trip on Thursday.

Now I’m really wondering what Daley’s last baseball Opening Day will be like, and trying to figure whether he will stick with the Sox on April 7, or take advantage of the Cubs’ season opener on April Fool’s Day.

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EXTRA: Is anybody really surprised?

Scott Walker, the Wisconsin governor who has engaged in heavily partisan political tactics to try to turn union-busting measures into state law, should have taken a lesson in hard-ball politics from our soon-to-be former mayor, Richard M. Daley.

WALKER: A political amateur, compared to Daley


Walker got a political victory in the early hours of Friday when the Wisconsin state Assembly’s Republican leadership cut off what had become nearly three full days of debate meant to stall the issue, and forced a sudden vote.

IT WAS LITERALLY so quick (and so staged by the GOP leadership) that roughly two-thirds of the Democratic legislative opposition didn’t realize a vote was being taken until it was over – and too late for them to express their opposition.

So now Walker’s desire to do away with collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin (the oldest trick, blame the financial problems on the workers) has at least one stamp of legislative approval. Whether it can get the approval of the Wisconsin state Senate is another – since many of the Democratic members there remain out-of-state, and the hard-core partisan nature of the Assembly vote is bound to harden them.

Which may be where Walker made his mistake. He had his people play their “drop-dead” card too early. He should have learned from the example of Daley.

Remember Meigs Field?

I DO. ON March 31, 2003, we all woke up to the sight of the runways of Meigs having been bulldozed – with big gouges in the form of giant “X’s” ground into the runway pavement so that it would have been dangerous for any airplane to try to land at the one-time air strip with proximity to downtown Chicago.

In fact, the feeling I experienced upon waking up Friday and learning of the middle-of-the-night antics of the Assembly in Madison, Wis., was similar to the feeling I felt when Daley just took action to do away with Meigs – the air strip he had wanted to do away with for years but had run into repeated political opposition.



Outgoing Mayor Richard M. Daley had his own middle-of-the-night political antics that destroyed the former Meigs Field, seen here in this portrayal of the airstrip in the Flight Simulator 2004 game.



The one difference is that with Daley, his action made it impossible for anyone to seriously talk about maintaining Meigs – unless they were willing to come up with the cash necessary to rebuild what he bulldozed.

Walker’s minions pulled their “drop-dead” move when the process was still incomplete.

I HONESTLY BELIEVE that many of those Democratic members of the Wisconsin state Senate are reaching the point where they are tired, homesick, and wondering if their protest act of staying out of state to keep their chamber of the Legislature shuttered (and incapable of acting) was a futile gesture.

The state Assembly’s act may give them the jolt they needed to make them hunker down and stay away indefinitely.

It also ensures that Walker’s rhetoric about all of this hard-core partisanship being necessary to balance the state’s budget will be seen for the cheap talk that it is, and will be among the list of partisan antics that voters will have to contemplate come the 2012 election cycle.

This is going to reflect badly upon the GOP everywhere, particularly since another part of Walker’s rhetoric is to require state employees to pay a larger share of their health insurance benefits – which the unions have said they’re willing to do if the talk of dropping collective bargaining rights disappears.

 TO LISTEN TO the “Tea Party types” who were a significant part of the coalition that got Walker elected governor in last year’s election cycle, Barack Obama is the president who is going to destroy our nation with such schemes as trying to ensure that as many people as possible have something resembling health insurance.

WALKER: Of Illinois



We also have one of their “preferred” politicians thinking that cuts in health insurance benefits are the way to fix a budget hole. In fact, many businesses probably wish they could do away with insurance for their employees to save money.

Which means we’d better hope that Obama prevails on his issue – otherwise we’re going to have a whole lot more uninsured or under-insured individuals in our society.

Thanks, Gov. Walker. You have ensured that political people will remember you for being as erratic and absurd a character as Illinoisans remember our own Gov. Walker (as in Dan) from several decades ago.

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Is it really big. Big, big, big, big. Big?

DALEY: More excited than usual these days

Chicago is an internationally-known city that has throughout the decades attracted its share of world leaders.

I still remember the presence of Lech Walesa within our city limits, and there is a certain generation that recalls it as a significant moment when Queen Elizabeth herself visited the city on the shores of Lake Michigan back in ’58.

SO WHY IS it that Richard M. Daley earlier this week got himself so excited that Hu Jintao, the president of China, is visiting Chicago that a part of me wonders if he wet his pants with glee at the very thought,.

The visit that Daley proclaimed to be Big times Six has arrived. Following time in Washington with President Barack Obama earlier this week, the Chinese president arrived in Chicago Thursday night and is getting the civic tour of the city on Friday.

My understanding is that the president will be taken to Walter Payton College Preparatory School, which has a Chinese cultural education center (known as the Confucius Institute) among its programs.

Which to me seems like we in Chicago are all eager to show that we’re not a batch of bumpkins like the people in our surrounding Midwestern states. We have the capacity to comprehend other cultures – which may well be the biggest difference between us in Illinois and those people in Indiana who in recent days have taken to trying to bash us on account of tax rates (that really aren’t as favorable to them as they’d like to dream).

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN us and them is that Chicago gives our state the ability to attract certain business opportunities within the global community that those other states can only dream about.

HU: What will he remember of Chicago?

I can’t envision any international leader getting all that interested in visiting Indianapolis (unless he has some real desire to see auto racing). In fact, I can’t help but think if Hu Jintao tried to visit one of the surrounding states of the Midwest, he’d probably encounter so much hostility as to make him deem such a visit pointless.

Not that he didn’t get such hostility in Chicago.

The protesters whose disgust for China’s apathy toward including human rights with economic freedoms makes them want to cut off the mainland altogether were grouped outside the Chicago Hilton & Towers, the downtown hotel where the president stood during his Midwestern U.S. visit and where Daley and first lady Maggie held a formal dinner that city officials were quick to point out was paid for through private donations.

IN SHORT, THE business interests that want to have ties to China paid to arrange for the leader of a Communist nation to have a nice meal while in our city limits.

After bopping about the Internet, I have read enough conspiracy theories telling me the “real” reason why Hu Jintao included a Chicago stop on his U.S. tour. After all, if he really wanted to see people of Chinese-American descent, he could have just as easily gone to San Francisco or New York.

I think my favorite of these goofy theories are the ones that imply Chinese leaders visited Obama’s adopted hometown because they’re secretly planning to fund Obama’s re-election bid. Therefore, what we have is a gathering between Chinese communists and “the Machine” – that dreaded cast of Chicago political characters who are imposing their autocratic ways on the federal government.

Daley’s brother, William, after all, is the new chief of staff. Now we know whom Daley takes his marching orders from. At least that’s what they’d like us to believe.

ONLY THE KIND of people who are determined to believe that Obama wasn’t really born in the United States and there has to be some way to think of him as a “foreigner” unfit for the presidency would believe this kind of nonsense.

Although I wouldn’t be surprised if the fact that Obama is president did somehow subtly play into the fact that Hu Jintao and his aides included a Chicago visit on their trip to the United States.

This is a city whose public profile has elevated significantly on the international level because of the fact that Obama still owns a home here, and still thinks of himself as such a native that he says he’s traveling to Dallas on Feb. 6 for the Super Bowl – IF the Chicago Bears manage to qualify by beating Green Bay on Sunday.

While I have my own qualms about the Chinese government (not Chinese people themselves), I also realize that we exist in the world with them, and we will have to engage in some business dealings. Any attempt to use the Cuba treatment to isolate them from the world would make us look so ridiculous – moreso than the Cuba trade embargo does these days.

I REALIZE THAT our economic future is going to be advanced through cooperation, not isolation. Besides, I can’t help but wonder if China eventually is going to feel the pressure to give in on the human rights issues – lest they become too cut off from the rest of the world (like the Soviet Union of old)  upon which they want to be a part of.

I just have one hesitation about this trip.

I only hope that Hu Jintao doesn’t catch too long a glimpse of our Chinatown neighborhood. I’d hate to think he’d go back to Beijing with his head filled with examples of Chinese/American gaudiness.

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It’s the guns, stupid!

President Barack Obama is the master orator whose words this week helped soothe the tensions caused by weekend shootings in Tuscon, Ariz., while presidential  dreamer Sarah Palin is the feisty dame whose words know how to fire up her segment of supporters.

DALEY: Getting to the point



Yet leave it to one of the biggest rhetorical stumblebums of the contemporary political scene to get straight to the point of what matters when it comes to the aftermath of those shootings of nearly 20 people, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., that left six dead.

I’M TALKING, OF course, about Richard M. Daley, our long-time mayor who goes off into retirement come May 15.

On the same day that Obama traveled to Tuscon to deliver an address at a memorial service that is being praised for offering comfort to the afflicted and that Palin managed to afflict the comfortable with her mention of the phrase “blood libel” (she doesn’t like all the people who imply her nasty rhetoric has anything to do with the angry mood of our nation these days), Daley had his own thoughts about the issue.

Daley went straight to the point in refusing to blame Palin, or anyone else. For Daley – whose city is actively resisting efforts to make it easy for any resident to purchase a firearm – it’s all about the guns.

“People can shout and say anything they want,” Daley told reporter-types at City Hall. “But they have no right to buy a gun … that has a clip of 15 rounds.”

THAT WAS JUST part of his rant against people who are trying to assess blame against Palin, or other conservative commentators, or any other individual. The man whose home city for nearly 30 years banned possession of firearms by anyone within city limits wants to ignore the commentators who say nasty things and focus on the people in our society who probably should not have access to firearms.

“It’s not the rhetoric,” Daley said. “It’s the right to carry these guns or have guns like this that kill people, and that’s what that individual did.”

PALIN: Get her a better speechwriter



For once in his professional lifetime, Daley hit the hammer on the head – rather than give us a rhetorical stumble (Remember the ‘rat in the sandwich’ line when he was talking about unsanitary restaurants?) that leaves us scratching our heads trying to figure out “What did he mean?”

Perhaps there is something about our local politicos that makes them perceive this issue more clearly. For I couldn’t help but notice that in the initial spurt of public dialogue on Sunday, while many other people were talking about restricting Internet discourse or talk radio rabble, Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., was the one person who publicly noted that the gunman in this particular incident had ammunition clips giving him access to 90 rounds – far more than was necessary for anyone to seriously say the pistol was for self-defense.

WE OUGHT TO be having a serious discussion in this country about firearms. But I am aware of the realities of some people in our society who are determined to think that somehow, the ability of a rural man to have a rifle that he uses to hunt will somehow be impeded by restricting the use of a firearm best suited for combat.

I’m also aware that many of those people are in the small segment of the population that takes kindly to the image that the former Alaska governor has crafted for herself. I’m also sure they are the ones who are outraged that the majority of people are now condemning her for her “blood libel” trash talk.

She is trying to claim that people are libeling her with the blood of those killed and wounded in Tuscon – which is a gross overstatement, while also playing off the original use of the phrase. It ties into the old anti-Semitic rants and tales that claimed Jewish people literally dipped their matzos into the blood of dead Christian children on Passover and other significant holidays.

I’m willing to give Palin the benefit of the doubt that she didn’t know that original meaning of the phrase. I know she went to college (several of them, as a matter of fact) and isn’t the stupidest person on the planet, but she also doesn’t strike me as one who has much curiosity about life beyond her specific segment of society – and I don’t expect she knew many Jewish people while living in Alaska.

SHE PROBABLY JUST thought it was a nasty-sounding line she could toss out to get her backers excited.

Considering that her original intent in scheduling an address of any kind on Wednesday (even a video post on Facebook) was to cut into the coverage of Obama trying to calm the nation by appearing at the primary memorial service in Tuscon, I think it only appropriate that her rhetoric backfired on her – and now she gets to take a few hits in return for trying to feed her public persona off the pain being experienced by those in Tuscon.

OBAMA: Did he bring us together?


You just know that in some peoples’ minds, Wednesday set the tone for a potential Obama/Palin presidential campaign in 2012. Obama brings us together, while Palin divides us.

Like I have already written, Daley has zeroed in on the practical reality that this incident ought to be a call for gun control measures to be reviewed. Although I feel I must credit Obama for one moment of inspiration in his own rhetoric.

CITING CHRISTINA TAYLOR Green, the 9-year-old granddaughter of former Chicago Cubs general manager Dallas Green, the president pointed out the accomplishments she achieved in her short life, then said, “I want us to live up to her expectations. I want our democracy to be as good as she imagined it.”

That is an inspirational goal we should all strive for.

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Who does Daley back?

Excuse me for not being the least bit surprised when I learned that Mayor Richard M. Daley said this weekend that he has no intention of publicly endorsing anybody who is seeking electoral office in the Feb. 2 primary elections.

It’s not that Hizzoner Jr. doesn’t care about the outcome of next month’s Democratic primary.

BUT DALEY ISN’T about to put his intelligence quotient on the line by putting himself in a position where on Feb. 3 we can look back and see which of his endorsed candidates won and which lost. He gets enough grief from critics for sounding “dumb” when he speaks. He’s not about to do anything that might confirm that impression.

Now some people are trying to claim that Daley’s refusal (officially, Daley said he’s “too busy” being mayor to try to get involved in boosting others to Election Day victory. That makes him the complete opposite of his father.

The late Richard J. Daley always used his role as party chairman to reinforce his municipal authority as mayor. It’s probably evidence of how much times have changed in the past four decades that Daley the younger thinks he bolsters his mayoral authority by staying out of other people’s campaigns.

There are those who are trying to claim that the person most hurt by Daley’s refusal to publicly endorse is Todd Stroger.

AFTER ALL, IF Daley were to get involved in the Cook County Board president primary and start pressuring people to cast their votes for the incumbent (which is what would nominally be expected, a lot of the people who otherwise would complain about sales taxes would shut their mouths and vote for Stroger – even if one of their hands was being used to pinch their nostrils shut.

But that is not happening here. And like I wrote at the beginning of this commentary, that doesn’t surprise me in the least.

I still remember 1998 and the Democratic primary for governor when people aligned with candidate John Schmidt were eager to peddle the notion that Daley wanted his one-time chief of staff to live in the Executive Mansion.

He may have. I don’t think Daley was hostile to the idea. Yet he never game him the public endorsement, and one of his brothers, John, threw some public support to Schmidt opponent Glenn Poshard (who ultimately lost in the general election that year to George Ryan), although another Daley brother, William, did try to push the Schmidt campaign over the top on Election Day that year.

MOST YEARS, IT doesn’t even get that obvious.

For anyone who looks back at the local election cycles that have occurred since Daley the younger became mayor in 1989 would realize that the man rarely, if ever, goes so far as to publicly endorse someone.

The sight of “M.” behind a podium holding a formal press conference to announce that he thinks we the electorate should cast our ballots for ___________________ who is running for _________________ just doesn’t occur.

You would have a greater chance of seeing the Chicago Cubs in the World Series than getting a blunt endorsement from Daley.

IN FACT, HAVING Daley make comments like he did this weekend about formal endorsements being archaic has become as predictable a “news” story as the one produced by sports departments every summer when the Chicago White Sox travel to the Lakeview neighborhood and manager Ozzie Guillen makes comments implying that Wrigley Field is a rat-infested, urine-smelling dump.

So Daley may be correct when he says, “In this day and age, …it’s a completely different environment in politics. I’ll be very frank. Endorsements don’t mean as much as they used to in the past.”

He’s not going to tell us straight out who we should vote for.

Yet that does not mean there won’t be actions behind the scenes. If anything, we’re going to have to be on the lookout for the little activities that crop up around the campaigns to see which candidates are not being hurt by the mayor’s actions.

THERE WILL BE those individual candidates who suddenly get a few extra campaign workers loaned to them for a day or two to handle some project that helps get a political person’s name out in the public mindset.

For in an election such as the one coming up where there is a certain lack of positive interest (2010 is going to be a year people vote against someone or something, unlike ’08 where many people were voting in favor of an ideal they thought was personified by Barack Obama).

There also is the fear that the inclement weather of the past week will extend into early February (although why anyone is shocked that it is cold and snowy in Chicago during the winter is a surprise to me) and could hold down the vote.

The biggest help anyone could give one of this year’s candidates is a little extra help from people who are willing to do the legwork to convince potential voters that their specific candidate is one of the few who isn’t a buffoon.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Is Rich Daley’s refusal to publicly back Todd Stroger (http://www.suntimes.com/news/cityhall/1941144,daley-denies-stroger-rift-no-endorsement-121509.article) a political kiss-off, or did Stroger have so many problems that Daley’s thoughts on the matter wouldn’t matter.

The mayor is keeping quiet about Election Day (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/us/03cncstroger.html) while his brother, William, is trying to maintain (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/25/AR2009122501283.html?hpid=opinionsbox1) some sort of moderate viewpoint among Democratic candidates. Neither of these actions should be seen as surprising.

Kennedy “mystique” to hit Illinois

It shouldn’t be a surprise. Christopher Kennedy (the son of Bobby) has made a life for himself in Chicago. And he comes from a family drenched in electoral politics.

So it was only a matter of time before he started thinking seriously of combining those factors and becoming a government official – running for a political post in a city where the magic name is “Daley,” not “Kennedy.”

FOR IT LOOKS like Kennedy, the guy who runs the Merchandise Mart (for many decades, the Kennedy family included the riverfront office building among their real estate holdings), thinks the world needs another Sen. Kennedy on Capitol Hill.

Unlike his Uncle Ted who stood in the Kennedy "homeland" of Massachusetts, Christopher would like to be the junior senator from Illinois.

In short, Christopher Kennedy has aspirations of being the guy who dumps Roland Burris from the U.S. Senate. Considering that the field is going to be crowded enough, I’m not sure what to think of the fact that a building manager with no prior elected offices on his resume wants to have one of the Big Four positions in Illinois politics.

It could be that in a crowded field, the Kennedy “mystique” will be sufficient to generate about 25 percent of the vote – which could be enough to win the Democratic party’s nomination in 2010.

WE COULD VERY well get a 21st Century sequel to the 1960 presidential campaign. That is the race where Richard J. Daley’s political organization (the dreaded Machine) turned out the vote to win Illinois’ electoral votes for John F. Kennedy.

Now, it could turn to Richard M. to get the powers that be of local politics to put aside their own elective ambitions to turn out the vote for Christopher come next November. For his part, Daley says he thinks the “Kennedy” name has a magic in Illinois.

On the one hand, it would be intriguing to see an “outsider” such as Christopher Kennedy run for office in Illinois. Next year is going to be the campaign where Republican officials at every level will scream the name “Blagojevich!” at every opportune moment (and even a few occasions where they make themselves appear gauche for doing so).

Because he has not held elective office, and hasn’t done much politically other than write out checks to make donations to favored candidates throughout the years, Kennedy might actually be able to dodge such accusations.

HOW COULD HE be just another “corrupt Blagojevich Democrat” (how many times will we hear that phrase?) when he has never been elected to anything. Yet that Kennedy name will draw national attention, which would make it easy for him to tap into sources for fundraising.

But I’m sure there will be people who will resent his presence, and will try to make him out to be some foreigner to this state – even though he has lived and worked in Chicago for decades (longer, I’m sure, than Barack Obama, who is now our ultimate “favorite son” on the national political scene).

I’m sure people like Burris, Jan Schakowsky, Alexi Giannoulias and anyone else with dreams of being in the U.S. Senate will start sniping at the Kennedy name, trying to make it seem as though some Massachusetts guy wants to steal a Senate seat from Illinois the same way Alan Keyes of Maryland tried to do in 2004.

I’m also sure that the hostility he will face will be comparable to the attacks sustained by Caroline Schlossberg. The daughter of JFK had her own dreams of being in the U.S. Senate from New York when Gov. David Patterson had the chance to fill a vacancy created by the resignation of Hillary Clinton (herself a Park Ridge native).

BUT SHE GOT hit with all kinds of accusations that she was totally inexperienced and knew nothing of the ways of public policy and public life. I can guess the campaigns against Christopher Kennedy in Illinois will echo that rhetoric – only more harsh.

Personally, I’m not sure if I’d vote for Christopher Kennedy. That is assuming he does proceed with plans to seek the nomination. I’d have to hear more about what he stands for.

But you have to admit it would have been the ultimate in bizarre if Caroline had become the senator from New York, with her cousin Chris being the senator from Illinois. The kids of JFK and RFK on Capitol Hill.

I’d feel all Kennedy-ed out. For those people who used to make an issue out of the fact that a Hillary Clinton election as president would have given us at least 24 years of the U.S. presidency being controlled by two families, I’d say the spread of Kennedys across the country makes the Bushes and Clintons seem like small change.

ACTUALLY, THAT IS the ironic part of this Kennedy conspiracy. Christopher isn’t even the first Kennedy to think of running for electoral office in our city.

Remember William Smith, the son of JFK and RFK sister Jean Smith?

One of the founders of the Center for International Rehabilitation who is most remembered for a 1991 rape trial in Florida (where he was acquitted) gave some thought back in 2001 to running for a U.S. House of Representatives seat from the Northwest Side.

That’s the one Rod Blagojevich gave up to run for governor in 2002.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: A modern-day Daley thinks a modern-day Kennedy could do well politically (http://www.suntimes.com/news/cityhall/1583041,daley-kennedy-chris-caroline-052009.article) on the Chicago scene.

“635” is the key stat in city budget

The scene of the budget cuts, including all those job layoffs.

I have mixed emotions to the new budget proposal approved Wednesday by the Chicago City Council. And no, I’m not getting all bent out of shape at the thought of the various fees being created and increased to try to balance out a $6 billion spending plan for the upcoming fiscal year.

The number that catches my attention is “635.”

THAT IS THE number of city government employees who are going to learn their labor is no longer affordable towards the goal of maintaining municipal services for city residents, although the Chicago Tribune at one point reported a potential total of 770 people to be laid off from their city jobs.

That strikes me as a lot of people to suddenly put out of work, particularly as we approach a Christmas holiday season that already was anticipated to be a down moment for the U.S. economy.

Now I know all the jokes people tell about government workers who sleep on the job, or who do menial tasks for great pay, or who manage to use their government access to eck out perks for themselves and their friends.

And from the one summer of my life that I spent on a government payroll (Cook County recorder of deeds, back in the days of Harry “Bus” Yourell), I know there are some government workers who give the impression of working for the government because they’re too un-ambitious to get a job in the private sector.

YET THAT IS still a lot of people to put out of work. When one notes the numbers of people left unemployed due to cutbacks at private companies, the competition for jobs and employment is going to be all the more tougher.

Now perhaps I’m too sensitive to the concept of unemployment and layoffs – having been laid off from three jobs (one of which was pretty close to being my fantasy job) in the past eight years. I’ve even lost some part-time employment because companies determined they couldn’t afford the pittance they were paying me for my labor.

So I know first-hand how depressing it can be to go through the concept of unemployment. I know the joys of getting a new job the exact week that one’s unemployment benefits run out, and I also know what it is like to have those benefits come to an end with no new income source lined up.

The idea that there are now 770 (or as few as 635) more people in Chicago who will endure the same things I have gone through in recent years is depressing to me. This isn’t a fate I would wish on my enemies.

IT IS WITH that attitude in my mind that I have to give a bit of praise to Billy Ocasio. He’s the alderman who represents the largely-Puerto Rican Humboldt Park and Logan Square neighborhoods in the City Council.

And he’s also the lone alderman who dared to vote against the budget proposal put forth by Mayor Richard M. Daley.

It’s not that Ocasio doesn’t realize that cuts in municipal staffing are going to have to comprise a portion of the $469 million that city officials needed to cut in order to ensure that the new city budget would be balanced.

Yet he became the “1” in the 49-1 vote because he was convinced that too many laborers who actually do work in the neighborhoods are going to be included in the ranks of the laid off – rather than middle-management types who work in offices at City Hall.

IT WAS NICE to know someone was keeping those soon-to-be-unemployed city workers in his mind while taking a vote on the city’s near-term financial future.

Now I’m not one of those people who thinks everybody wearing a tacky tie while working a desk job at “the Hall” is somehow worthless. I’m not convinced that every “Streets and San” worker is a noble creature worthy of eternal job protection.

But I do realize that fewer workers in Streets and Sanitation, or any city agency for the matter, means remaining staff being burdened to do more and more work to maintain city services at the same level.

Eventually, it becomes a situation where they just can’t do the same amount of work, and city services suffer. That will give Chicago residents yet more issues to gripe about when they think of city government.

TO ME, DECLINING levels of service is a significant issue. In my mind, it is more important than the increase in parking garage taxes charged by the city, or the hike in taxes charged on sporting event tickets.

Some people are going to hear about the new budget and complain – I’m paying too much already. And perhaps they are.

But I’m going to think just a bit about the several hundred people newly unemployed in order to ensure a balanced budget.

Part of it is a sympathetic thought of being unemployed around the winter holidays. But part of it also is worry about whether these people have the potential to compete with me for work.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Considering the declining financial status of the newspaper industry, both nationally and in Chicago, will this be one of the last news events where we (http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/1287711,budget-chicago-2009-city-council-111908.article) will be able to compare and contrast dueling news coverage of an event (http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/clout_st/2008/11/aldermen-approv.html) in the Sun-Times and Tribune?

Some people are trying to create partisan political spats by claiming the added security in downtown Chicago on account of President-elect Barack Obama’s presence there during (http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/1285826,daley-obama-transition-chicago-police-111808.article) the transition period is adding to the city’s police expenses.

Jones joins the Daleys in the political category of “Did he really say it?”

Usually, when a Chicago-area political person gets in trouble for saying something offensive, it is because they said something they secretly believe.

The classic example was the time in 1993 then-Illinois Senate President James “Pate” Philip, R-Wood Dale, said approving increases in benefits paid by social service programs was a waste because the recipients would just use the extra money to "buy more lottery tickets."

IT WAS BLUNT. It was a tacky thought to have. And Philip eventually offered up a pseudo-apology, saying he was sorry if anybody was offended (but not sorry for actually believing such a thought).

But retiring Illinois Senate President Emil Jones, D-Chicago, has crossed over into a different category of tacky comments made by a politico. It is a category that contains the Daleys.

It is a category where people will forevermore debate, “Did he really say it?” For Jones claims people who are now offended with him actually misheard him, similar to how the Mayor Daleys (both “J” and “M”) claim they were misheard.

Jones entered the category of “Chicago politicos who said something stupid” during an event last weekend when some people claim he referred to black politicians who still support the presidential dreams of Hillary R. Clinton over those of Barack Obama as “Uncle Toms.”

ACCORDING TO THE Chicago Tribune, longtime political activist Delmarie Cobb claims Jones made the wisecrack about her, and she claims two Chicago aldermen were with her and heard Jones say it.

Jones says he never said it, and that is where he differs from the rank-and-file of stupid political comments.

He claims he was attacking people who were still supportive of Clinton’s presidential dreams and critical of Obama’s chances of winning a general election against Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Jones says he called them, “Doubting Thomases.”

Jones told the Tribune that Cobb (an African-American woman who has been active in politics since the days that Jesse Jackson ran for president in the 1980s, but this year was a leader of the Clinton campaign in Illinois during the primary season) must have only heard the word “Thom” and somehow filled in the rest of the slur (incorrectly, he claims) in her imagination.

IT’S TOO BAD that no audio tape exists of Jones’ moment that could help us decipher what was really said.

Because now we have to figure out whether we believe Cobb (and her two aldermanic witnesses) or Jones.

For those who are culturally (or literarily) clueless, “Uncle Tom” as an insult is a reference to “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” the 1850s novel whose namesake character became the basis for a slur used by black people against other black people who were perceived to be putting the interests of whites ahead of their own kind.

In one sense, this incident can be seen as yet another anecdote indicating than the Obama and Clinton supporters are not yet ready to kiss and make up and work together for the Nov. 4 general elections.

BUT IT IS a slur I have heard used by various political people from Chicago. And the reason I’m inclined to think Cobb didn’t completely imagine this incident is because whenever I have heard it used by those politicos, it was never in the full phrase of “Uncle Tom.”

It was usually spoken as just “Tom,” as one might say of another black person, “he’s Tomming it,” or “We have some Toms among us.”

So Jones might literally be speaking the truth that he never said the two words in combination with each other. But it could very well have been the thought he meant to convey.

The fact that he now says he was saying “Doubting Thomas” almost sounds too convenient, like a thought that popped into his head when he was first confronted with the allegation that he was slurring against Cobb.

IT SOUNDS A lot like the excuse that Richard M. Daley gave when he did/did not make his own gaffe in the days just before getting elected mayor in a special election of 1989.

At the time, Chicago had gone through two African-American mayors, and the fallout from the “Council Wars” era still tinged a lot of activity with regards to city government. We didn’t need Democrats and Republicans in the City Council when we had blacks and whites willing to fight it out politically.

At a campaign rally, Daley the younger allegedly said something along the lines of, “what we need is a white mayor who can deal with the business community.”

Except that Daley insists he never said the word “white.” People who were on hand for the event claim that the verbal flub that some want to interpret as the word “white” was really the future mayor engaging in classic “Daley speak,” stumbling over the word “what” so badly and with such awful syntax that the controversial comment could be heard by a person inclined to various conspiracy theories.

SUCH AN EXCUSE would be ridiculously laughable, except that those of us who have heard Daley speak know that he IS such an awful public speaker that he makes Jones appear to sound like a classic orator.

So now, Chicago historians can debate whether Jones meant “Uncle” when he said “Thomas” and whether Daley the younger ever really said “white.”

Yet both men fall far short of Daley the elder, who had his “Did he really say it,” moment during the Democratic National Convention of 1968.

All of the historic retrospectives that have been appearing in newspapers and on television in recent days have focused on the fact that Chicago police went overboard in their physical harassment of protesters (their conduct was classified as a “police riot,” according to the Walker Commission investigation conducted one year later).

YET TO SOME people, the ultimate convention moment came inside the International Amphitheatre when Sen. Abraham Ribicoff, D-Conn., used the main stage to say, “if George McGovern were president, we wouldn’t have these Gestapo tactics in the streets of Chicago.”

Such a blunt shot at Chicago’s police warranted an outburst of noise from the Illinois delegation to the convention, and Daley was seen to say something – although his exact words were drowned out those people around him – which included a youthful Richard M. Daley.

Later, Daley the elder would say he was calling Ribicoff a “faker,” which some Daley loyalists claim was his slur of choice for liberal activists whose sincerity he doubted. Yet there are those to this day claim Hizzoner was using a certain choice obscenity that many mothers have threatened to wash out their sons’ mouths with soap for using.

And the counter-cultural activists of the era fed off that uncertainty, often claiming they could lip read him into saying something along the lines of, “F—k you, you Jew S-n of a B---h.”

SO PERHAPS IT is only appropriate that Jones chose to join the quotables club in the days just before the 40th anniversary of Daley the elder’s infamous moment of, “Did he really say that?”

The only real question is how long until the trio of politicos becomes a foursome?

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EDITOR’S NOTE: What did Emil Jones Jr. really say about Delmarie Cobb? And should any of this (http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/clout_st/2008/08/clinton-delegat.html) creep its way into the presidential campaigns, particularly during the Democratic convention?

Chicago political influence will be on display throughout Dem show in Denver

(NOT IN) DENVER – The Democratic Party chose Denver to be the site of their presidential nominating convention this year in large part to try to show a growing influence in western states that many people think of as Republican strongholds.

Yet the lineup of speakers for the Democratic National Convention, particularly those who will speak Monday night, makes me feel like the show I’ll be missing is a political rally similar to many I have seen before – in Chicago.

ALL WE’D NEED is the “Picasso” statue in the background, and we might as well be able to have the convention speakers at the Daley Center plaza.

Now as it turns out, potential first lady Michelle Obama (a life-long South Sider) will be the primary speaker today, although Obama’s sister, Maya, and brother-in-law, Craig Robinson, will also get a bit of attention – letting us know why their brother/brother-in-law ought to get to live at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, N.W., for at least four years.

Yet others who will put on a show will include Illinois SEIU President Tom Balanoff, Jerry Kellman who originally hired Obama to be a community organizer when he first came to Chicago in the mid-1980s, and Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill., (yet not his father, longtime civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson).

Then, there is the gathering of Chicago politicos who do their bidding at the Statehouse in Springfield, but will be gathering in Denver on Monday. They include Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, state Comptroller Dan Hynes (who lost to Obama in the 2004 primary for U.S. Senate), Chicago city Clerk (and former state Senate colleague of Obama) Miguel del Valle, and Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulis (who would not have a political career had Obama not taken an interest in his one-time student at the University of Chicago).

THE IDEA IS that the first night of the convention is supposed to consist of a list of speakers who knew Barack, “way back when…” Our Chicago politicos are supposed to let the nation know who Obama really is.

It is meant to combat all the ridiculous rhetoric that will come from Republican loyalists in coming months that Obama is nothing more than a political hack from Chicago.

Trust me when I write that if Obama really were nothing more than a “Chicago machine” type, then he never would have aspired to become president, or probably not even to serve in the U.S. Senate.

He would have been content to serve in the Illinois Senate for a few decades, and perhaps would be one of the people under consideration in coming months for the role of state Senate president – now that current leader Emil Jones Jr., D-Chicago, is retiring.

REPUBLICAN POLITICAL HACKS are more truthful when they try to attack Obama as a creation of the overly intellectual University of Chicago faculty and as a product of the activist spirit that has long dominated Obama’s home neighborhood of Hyde Park.

Anybody who seriously knows their Chicago politics understands how far Hyde Park (with its pseudo-integrated population) stands outside the mentality that dominates Chicago City Hall.

The late political science academic Milton Rakove’s classic book about “the Machine” was entitled “We Don’t Want Nobody Nobody Sent” because that was the reaction he got from Machine types when he tried to volunteer to work on city political campaigns, and they learned he was a U of C student (Go Maroons!).

It is a complete contradiction of terms to claim Obama is a Chicago political hack AND some sort of radical. Anyone who tries to serve up that political talk is showing their ignorance.

BUT WE OUGHT to give them one bit of credit – at least they are openly trying to turn this campaign into a form of class warfare, a sleazy tactic on their part, but at least they’re not pretending to be respectable.

It would be nice if the slew of Chicago speakers (and they are all Chicago, nobody from the suburbs or rural areas that technically comprise about three-quarters of the population of Obama’s adopted home state of Illinois) on Monday can help the nation understand this concept.

Because I don’t know how many more times I will be able to tolerate hearing the Republican rhetoric about the “radical, liberal Chicago machine” politico.

Other people with local ties who will get speaking slots (and some public attention) during the rest of the week include Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., on Tuesday, and Mayor Richard M. Daley on Wednesday.

ALSO ON WEDNESDAY, Democrats will include a tribute to the U.S. military and to veterans, to be presented in part by Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs Director Tammy Duckworth.

She stands to get some attention locally because she is quite possibly the only political person at the nominating convention who has any loyalties to Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Our state’s governor did not get any type of speaking slot at the Obama pep rally, er, uh, presidential nominating convention, even though he could easily have been slipped into the slew of governors who will speak Tuesday night.

Duckworth is the Iraq War veteran who lost a leg in combat, and later went on to run an unsuccessful bid for a congressional seat from the Chicago western suburbs. Her state agency post was her consolation prize.

BUT SHE COULD get a bigger boost if Obama prevails on Election Day – Duckworth is one of the people whom Blagojevich reportedly is considering to replace Barack in the U.S. Senate.

Who’s to say that the big story from Illinois at the Democratic convention won’t be the introduction to the nation of Duckworth as a national political figure (similar to how the ’04 convention’s big local story was the conception of the phenomenon now known as Obama-mania?)

Technically, for those of us looking for Chicago angles to this week’s political activity in Denver, there are two other speakers worth noting.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick grew up on the South Side and has become an Obama friend (even giving Barack permission to use some of his political rhetoric on the presidential campaign trail).

THEN, LET’S NOT forget about the “Lady from New York.” Sen. Hillary R. Clinton, D-N.Y., is a native of suburban Park Ridge who grew up in the Chicago area, until she went off to college out east, and fell in love with an Arkansas boy who some of you may have heard of.

Perhaps all the Chicago influence will give her a twinge of affection for her home town, inspiring her to get her band of loyalists to come on board the Obama bandwagon in hopes of getting a Democrat in the White House for the first time since the early days of January, 2001.


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EDITOR’S NOTES: The Democratic National Convention will try to offer a unified vision of party faithful (http://www.demconvention.com/schedule/) to bolster the chances Hawaiian-turned-Chicagoan Barack Obama can become U.S. president.

Vice presidential nominee Joe Biden is not a stranger (http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/08/bidens_illinois_and_daley_ties.html) to Chicago political types, who will be a dominant presence all this week (http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/news/politics/denver-dnc/) in Denver.

I must confess, it never occurred to me to try to hit up you wonderful people who take the time (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/fashion/24blog.html?ref=politics) to read my commentaries and analysis to send me money so I could travel to Denver and St. Paul, Minn., to watch the political pep rallies up close. I won’t be at either convention.

Olympics in Chicago take a major commitment for mass transit improvement

One of the biggest obstacles Chicago officials face in terms of bringing the summer Olympic Games to the Second City come 2016 is the condition of the mass transit system in the metropolitan area.

Moving people about the area is a problem in that the system of elevated and subway trains and buses are usually intended to keep people within their respective portion of the Chicago metropolitan area. The idea of someone being able to go anywhere within the six-county Chicago area without having an automobile is absurd.

THERE’S ALSO THE fact that the mass transit system in our area is old – more than a century. Portions of the elevated train track used by the Chicago Transit Authority date back to the 1890s, which may have made them state-of-the-art for Chicago’s aborted attempt to stage the 1904 Olympics (which were shifted to St. Louis is a bit of intercity intrigue).

Now portions of the system are new (such as the elevated trains running from the Loop to Midway Airport), and overall, the “el” and subway system is in good condition for something so old.

But the few upgrades that have been made to the system throughout the years are not sufficient to provide a system for moving an influx of Olympics-related people from place to place throughout Chicago.

That ought to be obvious to anybody who has observed the reactions of Mayor Richard M. Daley, who is in Beijing to witness the ’08 summer Olympics out of hope he can steal a few ideas that will give our home city an advantage in gaining the ’16 games over Madrid, Rio de Janeiro or Tokyo.

OFFICIALS IN BEIJING literally opened two new subway lines, and another line directly linking the airport to the Olympic stadium, in order to accommodate the masses of people who will want to get around the city in order to witness world-class athletics.

Officials say they expect up to 1 million people per day to use those new routes as part of Olympics-related transit.

Just imagine how swamped the CTA would become if that many people were to try to ride the Jackson Park elevated train line (the Green Line “el,” to those who are too young to remember the names that used to be given to the various CTA train lines), which is the one that comes closest to the South Side site where Daley dreams of erecting a temporary stadium to stage opening ceremonies and other athletic events.

Any attempt to upgrade the CTA train lines is going to have to be a virtual reconstruction of the system with origins going back more than a century (the CTA itself was not created until 1943, but it uses the remnants of transit systems that used to connect neighborhoods to downtown).

ANYTHING SHORT OF a reconstruction is going to be perceived by Olympics officials as second rate. In that case, we might as well give up our efforts now to get the games.

For his part, Daley seems willing to consider such a massive upgrade, telling reporter-types on hand for the Olympic Games that, “if you can put a man on the moon, then we can really fix this up.”

The trick, as he sees it, is bolstering the existing infrastructure so it can accommodate the newer rail cars of the 21st Century that are used in places such as Beijing, which allow for faster-moving trains that can actually maintain something resembling a schedule.

Gee, what a radical concept, a CTA whose trains (and buses) aren’t ridiculously late all the time!

OF COURSE, OLYMPICS officials have questioned the city’s estimates that such an upgrade of transit and highways would only cost $27 billion. So who knows how legitimate the city’s Olympics bid ought to be taken.

The reason I do not dismiss the concept of a summer Olympiad coming to Chicago eight years from now is because I realize this is probably the best shot we, the people of Chicago and its surrounding suburbs, will ever have to motivate our political people to make the major upgrade of mass transit that will benefit all of us who live in the region.

The political maneuvering that will need to take place in order to get the local officials to back the project will need the promise of an event of “historic” proportions such as an Olympiad.

The fact that it would be a scheduled event with deadlines that must be met would be the only thing to pressure political people who normally view construction of any type as an excuse to enrich themselves or their allies, rather than to better the facilities used by the public.

LEAVE IT TO the political people to approve a plan to engage in a massive transit improvement, and we will be here in August 2016 watching the Olympics take place in Rio de Janeiro because our officials still will not have approved anything in the way of construction.

Think I’m exaggerating?

Consider how long officials have been debating construction of a third major airport for the Chicago area. The need for such a facility (with O’Hare International and Midway airports now operating at capacity) has been known for decades.

But the political people of our region have never approved anything airport-related because they are taking former House Speaker Tip O’Neill’s maxim of “All Politics is Local” to a ridiculous extreme, placing their respective neighborhoods’ needs over those of the region as a whole.

IT MAY BE sad that it would take an Olympics to get us improved mass transit. It probably is something that the political people would want to do for those of us who live here year round, rather than for visitors who will come here for a couple of weeks eight years from now – then never return again.

But I will take it. The promise of improved transit, particularly in this age of ridiculously priced gasoline and public parking (and overly strict attitudes toward the “booting” of illegally parked cars), ought to make Olympics fans out of all of us.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Mayor Richard Daley is making a priority of seeing how much nicer Beijing’s subways are than Chicago’s (http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chicago-daley-transit-beijing-olympics-aug6,0,5395155.story), and how much money will have to be spent to upgrade the Chicago Transit Authority so that International Olympics Committee officials take seriously the city’s bid to host the 2016 games.

Would Gov. Rod Blagojevich be willing to play politics with state government support (http://www.pjstar.com/news_state/x806577678/Frustrated-governor-says-he-needs-Daleys-help) for Chicago’s Olympics bid? Did anyone seriously take longer than three seconds to answer, “Yes?”

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama has talked lightheartedly about how nice it would be (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/63ec4b34-602d-11dd-805e-000077b07658.html) to walk from his Hyde Park neighborhood home to the Olympic Stadium in 2016, but some U.S. officials believe the international presence he has developed gives Chicago’s bid some credibility.

Chicago lost its last bid for the Olympics in 1904 when officials engaged in intercity (http://www.olympic.org/uk/games/past/index_uk.asp?OLGT=1&OLGY=1904) politicking and shifted the games to St. Louis to coincide with the World’s Fair that year.

Was firearms buyback a success?

As much as I personally prefer the concept of fewer firearms existing in the public domain, the notion of Chicago’s firearms “buyback” program contains so many contradictions that no rational human being can possibly take it seriously.

For the record, Chicago police set up 25 sites this weekend where people could bring their firearms and surrender them – with the understanding that the weapons will be destroyed. Police say just over 6,800 weapons were collected.

THEY’D LIKE US to think that it means there are 6,800 fewer firearms that could be used to assault the general public. In reality, it means there are about 6,800 people who managed to scam the Chicago Police Department out of a few bucks.

Yes, it’s true.

The police were paying for weapons – $100 for pistols and shotguns and $10 for pellet guns, air guns and other phony weapons that looked real enough that they could be mistook for a legitimate firearm.

You could have taken that BB gun your parents gave you as a childhood present and surrendered it for a few bucks, while giving Chicago police yet another boost to a statistic they want to interpret as evidence we are safer.

EXCUSE ME FOR not being convinced.

The gun buffs who like to think it is their inalienable right to bear whatever firearm they desire (and who secretly hope to have an excuse at some point in their lives to shoot a real live human being) will point out that many of the types of weapons that get surrendered at events like these buybacks are junk.

We’re often talking about old pistols that are defective and that likely are more of a threat to the person holding the weapon than to the person who the gun barrel is pointed at.

If police records were more thorough when it came to ancient crimes, we’d probably find at least a few weapons that were used in crimes decades ago but have not been fired since.

I CAN REMEMBER being a reporter covering a firearms buyback several years ago where someone literally tried to peddle the antique pistols that had belonged to his grandfather. Their condition had deteriorated too much for them to be of any value to a firearms collector, so the owner was just trying to get something – anything – for his “weapons.”

My point is that the police may have built up an arsenal this weekend of junk guns and pellet guns, and possibly, a few toys.

Where are the hard-core automatic weapons that are used on the streets that cause the serious violence in our society today? Those are the weapons whose proliferation in the public are causing the violence on our urban streets. Of course, those weapons are worth hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars, so no one is going to surrender them for $100.

Chicago Police Superintendent Jody Weis would disagree.

HE MADE A point of showing the Chicago Tribune a sawed-off shotgun with an 8-inch barrel, noting that such a weapon was not good for anything except inflicting harm on other human beings.

But the occasional shotgun in a flimsy field of 6,800 weapons overall doesn’t amount to much of a reduction in the number of weapons available in Chicago.

Not only that, but with the Chicago area consisting of just over 8 million people (with just under 3 million of them in the city proper), 6,800 weapons is an insignificant number.

It wasn’t even the figure Chicago police were hoping to reach. Noting that they collected about 6,700 weapons in their buyback last year, police said they wanted to double their collection effort.

ROUNDING IT OFF, they wanted 14,000 guns. Instead, they barely surpassed the figure reached last year.

The real purpose of a gun buyback is symbolic. It is meant to create the image of a city concerned enough to be willing to do anything to get guns off the streets. If it means they have to spend a few bucks (and not ask any questions, since technically every single Chicago resident who surrendered a weapon could have been arrested for being in violation of city ordinances that ban firearms ownership), they will do so.

Mayor Richard M. Daley, in talking with reporters last week, compared firearms in the public domain to, “gasoline sitting in your home.”

“It’s sitting there and you’re lighting a wick every night, and you’re wondering whether or not it’s going to go off, and it goes off like that in your hand,” Daley said.

OF COURSE, ONE could make an extreme comparison and claim the city should try reducing the number of illegal narcotics on the streets by “buying back” the drugs. In my mind, I can hear the moral outrage of the public to the idea of the city buying drugs (and trying to figure out which drugs are worth money and which are worthless fakes).

A part of me wonders how a weapons buyback is morally any more justified.

But even if one views the symbolic value of a firearms buyback as justification, the city blew it!

Police weren’t handing out actual cash. Instead, they had a stash of debit cards valued at $100 or $10, giving them out to people so they could use them when they go shopping.

IT MAKES SENSE, since in the 21st Century our retailers seem to prefer having people use cards that can be swiped through the register, rather than having to entrust cashiers to count bills and coins.

But it turns out that they did not have enough debit cards on hand, and some people who surrendered weapons later in the weekend had to settle for a slip of paper promising them that the city will eventually give them a debit card for $100 (or $10, if all they did was brought in their kid’s BB gun).

That is the most ridiculous aspect to me.

City officials had hoped to double the number of weapons they collected through their buyback program, yet they did not have enough debit cards on hand to reimburse people for the piddling number of weapons they managed to collect.

HOW MUCH OF a public relations fiasco would it have been if the city had managed to reach its goal of about 14,000 weapons surrendered, yet been unable to make the payout?

Even if their guns are junk, do we really want to be arousing the anger of 25 rooms filled with armed people?

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Rev. Michael Pfleger allowed his St. Sabina church in the Gresham neighborhood to be used (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-gun-buyback_both_27jul27,0,160132.story) as a collection point for people wishing to sell their weapons to the police.

City officials try to rebut the argument that nothing but junk weapons were surrendered during the buyback by noting (http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/1069286,CST-NWS-guns23_web_.article) that even antique weapons can kill people.

During the past two years, firearms buybacks by Chicago police have managed to get (http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/07/27/Chicago_police_collect_6000_guns/UPI-15061217190050/) about 11,000 weapons off the Second City’s streets.