As his own campaign commercials aptly observed, Richard M. Daley will never rank as a great orator. Nothing he said or did in his hugely successful run for mayor earlier this year changed that assessment.
”I may not be the best speaker in town,” Daley conceded in announcing his campaign for mayor last December, ”but I know how to run a government and how to bring people together.”
Upon assuming the mayoralty April 24, however, Rich Daley was transformed. He began to speak clearly, if not elegantly, and was often funny, even quotable. It became clear that he relishes his new job and enjoys it in his own low-key, hands-on fashion. He is the kid from Bridgeport who has taken over the family business.
As the first 100 days of Daley`s administration near completion, the young mayor and his appointees have demonstrated they can run the city effectively-and have, for the time being at least, tempered the political angst that was becoming part of Chicago`s character.
Daley has not been successful at everything he has undertaken, nor has he undertaken all that he could have. But the consensus, even among his political opponents, is that he has earned at least a passing grade.
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A week into his two-year term, Daley told a chuckling press corps that he was selling the mayor`s well-armored $50,000 stretch limousine, which his predecessor ordered, because ”in case of a nuclear disaster, I think I would be the only one left.”
His repartee with reporters and general aw-shucks demeanor has resulted in an unprecedented amount of good press for the new mayor. The credit for this is attributed to Daley`s own personality and a staff that carefully packages his daily pronouncements about what ails city government, along with the good doctor`s prescription for a cure.
”It`s the first time in my memory that a person simultaneously got elected mayor of the city and bought the two major newspapers,” quipped Ald. Lawrence Bloom (5th), an unsuccessful mayoral candidate.
Some Daley critics, reacting to his calm first three months, have cried
”media conspiracy.” But if they have uncovered any major scandals or failures, they have kept them secret.
”I would call (Daley`s administration) flash, dance and glitter,” said Ald. Danny Davis (29th). ”But what we find is that all glitter is not gold.” Don Rose, a political strategist and Daley adversary, said: ”He`s laying the groundwork for re-election in 1991 and doing a very effective job of it. He`s not laying the groundwork for political reform, but, at some point, it will become part of the agenda because he`ll need it for a campaign.
”The opposition is laying the groundwork for defeating him, but, frankly, they haven`t been as successful.”
Daley was elected to fill the final two years of the second term of Chicago`s first black mayor, the late Harold Washington. To win the office, he defeated Washington`s interim replacement, Eugene Sawyer, who is black.
Opponents have charged that Daley has been insensitive to minorities. But through his appointments and initiatives, Daley has worked to undercut that claim. Despite his good public image, the mayor has had mixed results in making changes.
As an example, consider his May 11 news conference to herald two major initiatives: a much needed cleanup of City Hall, which he called a pigpen, and the creation of an inspector general to root out corruption by aldermen and city employees.
City Hall is now sparkling-some black activists called the mayor`s pigpen remark a left-handed slap at the preceding black administrations-but the inspector general concept, opposed privately by Daley`s aldermanic allies and publicly by his council opposition, is stuck in committee, with little hope of passing.
”With what Daley had going when he took office,” Rose said, ”he could have knocked heads and made (the inspector general ordinance) pass. That`s what Washington did with the ethics ordinance.”
Certainly Daley came to office with advantages his three predecessors never enjoyed:
– A Republican Gov. James Thompson anxious to re-create the halcyon days when GOP governors and Democratic mayors worked hand-in-glove.
– A reliable Chicago City Council majority.
– A political opposition so thoroughly vanquished and riven by dissension that it now appears to have little hope of beating him in an election just 18 months away. But that could turn around, depending on Daley`s continuing relationship with the black community.
His media consultant, David Axelrod, concedes that Daley`s workload has kept him from making the sort of appearances in minority communities that were a staple of his campaign. He says Daley will have to make them a regular part of his schedule.
”I see an isolation from the black community,” Bloom asserted. ”In the key, policy-making positions, there is nobody who is an administrative assistant to the mayor who is black. In the key departments of budget, finance, planning, housing and purchasing, there is no black (commissioner).” Jesse Jackson complains that Daley has shunned the city`s black political establishment, and Rose characterizes the mayor`s inner circle of policymakers and political advisers as 11th Ward throwbacks to the regime of Daley`s late father.
The most sensitive issue has been the Chicago Board of Education and attempts by Daley`s hand-picked interim board to remove Supt. Manford Byrd Jr. ”There is a great deal of tension mounting around the whole business of school reform,” Davis said. ”There is a great feeling among parents that their role and influence is being diminished, and people are afraid that they are going to cut out blacks that have worked their way up to administrative positions within the Board of Education.”
Another issue facing Daley is economic development, including such thorny questions as affordable housing and a new Bears stadium.
”He`s in the middle of a transition, and it`s premature to tell how he will do,” said Rob Mier, the key development adviser for Mayors Washington and Sawyer. ”He`s brought in a whole new development team, and they are clearly feeling their way.
But to those who have waited 13 years for a mayor like Richard J. Daley to govern the city, Richard M. Daley fits the bill.
”He`s doing everything right,” said Ald. Richard Mell (33d), a Daley ally. ”A style is emerging as a hands-on administrator similar to the father.”
An early scoreboard for Daley`s first 100 days shows successes and failures:
– Reform. He made clear in his campaign that ethics was a top priority, and one of the first things he did after his election was pass a sweeping ethics measure that would prohibit several city agencies from soliciting political contributions.
But Daley also promised to reform the City Council by substantially reducing the 28 committees. He didn`t. He buckled under aldermanic pressure and exempted the corruption-riddled Department of Inspectional Services from the ethics ordinance.
– Education. Daley campaigned on school reform as another top priority and has appointed a blue-ribbon interim school board of three blacks, two whites, a Hispanic and an Asian.
Black activists, led by Jackson, repeatedly have criticized the board and its vice president, former Ald. William Singer, but the board has achieved what Daley wanted, with the help of minorities not allied to Jackson.
Last week, the interim board negotiated an unusually early contract settlement with the teachers` union, slashed the school board bureaucracy and is embarking, with seeming confidence, on implementation of state-mandated reforms.
One false step was the appointment of interim board member Janis Sharpe, whose only qualification appears to be that she was once the secretary to West Side ward boss Ed Quigley.
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– Economic development. The decision of Sears, Roebuck & Co. to move its Merchandising Group, with its thousands of jobs, out of Chicago was a major blow to the city-and to Daley`s prestige.
Mier said he thought Daley, had he tried, would have had the clout to keep Sears in the city, and is surprised that he allowed the General Assembly to give such a lucrative incentive package to suburban Hoffmann Estates. Mier also faults Daley for his failure to package the Bears stadium with the one approved for the Bulls and Blackhawks.
– Intergovernmental relations. Daley has shown he can get almost anything he wants out of the City Council and the state legislature. His magic was absent, however, when the mayor went hat in hand to Washington earlier this month and came home with nothing.
But given the federal deficit and the burgeoning role of state governments, the former state senator`s familiarity with Springfield and his rapport with Thompson may be more valuable. Daley campaigned on the promise of getting the goods out of Springfield, and he has delivered.
– Housing. Daley has wisely left most public housing issues in the hands of Vincent Lane, chairman of the Chicago Housing Authority. But he secured passage of the Low Income Housing Trust Fund, which had languished for months in the City Council, and helped push through an increase in the cigarette tax to fund programs for the homeless. Some of Daley`s progressive allies complain that the mayor is getting credit for initiatives they started.
– Navy Pier. Where all his predecessors failed, Daley has succeeded, finagling $150 million out of the state to rehabilitate the lakefront landmark and remake the McCormick Place board.
Mier said the deal Daley engineered never would have occurred under Sawyer. House Speaker Michael Madigan (D., Chicago) says it was Thompson`s idea. Daley also wanted to overhaul the Chicago Transit Authority board but backed off.
– Affirmative action. Daley has had mixed results on perhaps the most watched issue of his administration by minorities and liberals.
His first step as mayor was to reauthorize the city`s minority set-aside program. He also appointed a three-person committee looking to incorporate that order into a city law that would pass constitutional muster.
But Daley also swept house among the top managers in city government, and the bulk of those who lost their jobs were minorities. The mayor`s personnel chief, Glen Carr, says most of the new hires have been women and minorities.
– O`Hare Airport. It has become the symbol of Daley`s kick-butt administrative machismo as he has moved quickly to cancel a host of seemingly useless consulting contracts. He has, however, dropped his plan to raid another major city for a top airport manager.
The mayor vowed that no longer will political connections determine who gets airport contracts. He stuck to the pledge and has sought to void a lucrative hotel lease benefiting Madigan`s law clients.
But despite the glow that has enveloped Daley during his first 100 days, which end Tuesday, he may soon have to come to grips with a taxpayers` revolt because of property tax bills mailed to Chicagoans this month.
Ald. Edward Burke (14th) says Daley won`t be hurt, because he distanced himself from the problem with an immediate-albeit token-measure to relieve city property taxes to be paid next year, prior to his 1991 re-election campaign.
But Daley also began his term by raising water and sewer rates, and one of his first steps was to talk about a potential $121 million deficit in the 1989 city budget. Daley supported the move to hike the state income tax that helped reduce the shortfall.
When Daley submits a new 1990 budget later this year, Burke says, the mayor`s challenge will be to make it ”lean and carefully crafted
. . . maximizing productivity and efficiency, reducing taxation.”
Perhaps the mayor could tell them a joke, but those angry Northwest Siders-Daley voters-give the impression that the honeymoon might soon be over.