Disorganized, resentful and jealous of each other, Mayor Richard Daley`s opposition-the one group that could put an end to the extended honeymoon he still enjoys as he marks his first anniversary in office this week-shows no signs of healing its self-inflicted wounds.
The protracted political civil war among black politicians that began with the death of Mayor Harold Washington in 1987 continues. Daley`s pronouncements, even his gaffes, go almost unchallenged by a collection of aldermen so rudderless they can`t even get together for a group photograph in memory of their late leader.
And while the bickering goes on, Daley calmly goes about the business of securing his re-election in 1991. His opponents said he wasn`t quick enough for the job, yet he`s checkmated them at almost every turn. He`s co-opted some of their leaders with jobs and perks while reaching out to their voters on issues and programs.
He`s already tying up most of the campaign money in town. Many black contractors, bankers and businessmen who might have considered financing an opposition mayoral campaign now sing Daley`s praises. Aldermen who once fought Daley now secretly line up for private audiences and leave his office with more than a handshake and a photograph.
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It is the same strategy his father used as mayor to quell opposition voices in Chicago.
Without a unified opposition to carry the fight to him, he is virtually unopposed in the public debate.
There is no sustained drive to question his policies, to make things a little less easy for the Daley publicity machine that has been operated so smoothly by the real centers of power in City Hall: his brother Bill, political enforcer Tim Degnan, issues man Frank Kreusi and chief financial officer Edward J. Bedore.
Even the opposition`s most strident defenders have had enough.
”There`s just no unity anymore at all, and I mean among those who really oppose Daley, the supporters of (former mayoral candidate and Ald.) Tim Evans,” said Ald. Jesus Garcia (22nd), a former Washington stalwart now on the outs with the Daley administration. ”We have got to be able to go into a room and talk, and not come out divided or at least not start cutting each other to pieces, which we do all the time.”
A recent, but little-noticed, incident shows how deep the divisions still run. At the Hotel Nikko, a meeting was called to discuss the construction of a gravesite monument to Washington, whose grave is covered with an unassuming marker.
Washington`s successor, former Mayor Eugene Sawyer, sat at the speaker`s table, looking down at his enemy, Evans, a former mayoral candidate and 4th Ward alderman whose legal challenge of the mayoral succession ended a Sawyer term that would have continued to 1991.
Although both men remained still, the hissing between their camps started once again, loudly. It was the same public animosity that brought Daley to power and will likely keep him there for years.
Daley`s political operatives hope it continues, as the mayor tries to position himself publicly above the fray, unwilling to engage what`s left of his opposition, letting them do the work for him.
Ald. David Orr (49th), is now campaigning for county clerk in the November elections, and, by political necessity, he is less critical of the mayor. Daley has pleased Orr`s liberal supporters with changes in the antiquated city building codes and by pushing the use of plastic plumbing pipe for new home construction.
Aldermen Bobby Rush (2nd) and Dorothy Tillman (3rd) are still plagued by allegations that they didn`t work hard enough for R. Eugene Pincham`s bid for Cook County Board president. Pincham lost to Richard Phelan, who had considerable help from some of Daley`s closest advisers while the mayor remained publicly neutral.
Rush was recently named deputy chairman of the Illinois Democratic Party, a post just created for him.
Ald. Evans (4th) has lost face among the members of his own clique and has criticized the mayor only on a sporadic basis. All three will face strong challenges in the upcoming aldermanic elections.
”There are four voting blocs in this city: Blacks, Hispanics, ethnic whites and the lakefront, and Daley`s got the last three sewn up already,”
said Paul Green, director of the Institute for Public Policy and Administration at Governors State University.
”He`s had a honeymoon, and it doesn`t show any signs of letting up,”
Green said. ”As long as he talks about government and not politics, as long as he refuses to engage his opponents on their playing field, he`s
impregnable.”
As Daley closes his first year in office and celebrates his 48th birthday on Tuesday, this is the way Chicago politics works:
White neighborhoods on the Northwest and Southwest Sides are pleased that a black is not in office, and one of their own runs City Hall. Hispanics are offered a real slice of power after years of being treated as poor sisters in the old black-Hispanic coalition.
Much of the so-called lakefront liberal vote that opposed the late Mayor Richard J. Daley has grown quite comfortable with the political establishment and is firmly behind the mayor. The leaderless acrimony continues on the black South and West Sides.
While that goes on, Daley`s administration bombards reporters with news. Almost each week brings a new proposal, from planting trees to revamping the city`s building code to calls for a new airport on the Southeast Side.
He supports a $1 billion project to expand the McCormick Place convention center and build a domed stadium for the Chicago Bears. There`s money appropriated to prepare development of Navy Pier. There have been programs announced to sell vacant lots to the poor for $1, other new programs to provide low-cost housing, efforts to target tenement landlords and speed up building inspections.
The proposals haven`t been enacted, just announced. But it makes for positive news spin, pleasing the developers and the lakefront progressives he wishes to keep under his political tent. At the same time, these promised proposals mean potential jobs and new homes for minorities, leaving critics no option but to wait and see if he can carry it off.
Chicago`s mayor presents himself as a manager, not a politician. In announcing his candidacy on Dec. 5, 1988, he offered himself as an alternative to the 12 years of political bickering that began with former Mayor Jane Byrne and lasted through Washington`s Council Wars years and the bitter Sawyer-Evans fight over who betrayed the black political movement in Chicago.
”The name-calling and politics at City Hall are keeping us from tackling the real issues,” he said. ”Let`s begin by recognizing how much more we can do by lowering our voices and raising our sights.”
If that was the sum and substance of his agenda, he has succeeded.
”As you move into the `90s, I think people just want their local officials to get on with it. I don`t think they want to see all the politics played and replayed. I mean, they don`t want to hear it,” Daley said in an interview.
He has taken the most criticism on hiring minorities in the top policy positions in his administration, those where he is free from court
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restrictions on political hiring and firing.
Although numbers show he has begun to bring more blacks into government, their representation has dropped significantly, by 25 percent in the past year. Daley defends his record, but also bristles at the complaints, wondering why he should be treated any differently than Washington, who brought many blacks into his administration at the expense of whites.
”I have a right to select people. I have a right to fill anybody in there. But now people are saying no. It was all right for other mayors, but now it`s not all right for me.”
Daley has led almost a charmed life in his first year. Even before he was elected, his top political lieutenant, former State Sen. Tim Degnan (D-Chicago) was helping lay the groundwork for the income tax surcharge that will bring $176 million to city coffers.
By contrast, Washington`s first year was hamstrung by a $90 million deficit that forced curtailment of hiring and put him on the defensive. But with the income-tax money, Daley was able to hire political allies, settle teacher, police and fire contracts, and give the appearance the city was moving forward.
He has been lucky.
Black-white political tensions threatened him when two black teens were dropped into the white Canaryville neighborhood by police and were beaten by street corner toughs. Police brutality hearings in the council could have been framed as a referendum on Daley, but bickering between Sawyer and Evans factions allowed the issue to disappear.
Jesse Jackson made a series of tactical mistakes in opposing the ouster of former Schools Supt. Manford Byrd Jr. Jackson let himself be cast as an opponent of school reform in a failed effort to save Operation PUSH`s influence on school hiring and contracts.
Lourdes Monteagudo, the deputy mayor for education, was quoted as saying Chicago schools weren`t good enough for her daughter, who is enrolled in a private north suburban high school. The girl was accepted at two of the city`s top public schools, but Daley defended Monteagudo as a shining example of motherhood and the controversy was settled.
The administration panicked when the Chicago mob`s gambling boss claimed on a tape recording played in federal court that he had a working relationship with City Hall and the Chicago police.
But a quick snowstorm hit the city, the media attention was split between the Daley administration`s lackluster handling of the snowstorm and an easier target-alleged ties between the Cook County sheriff`s office and organized crime, a subject that already had received wide media attention. The City Hall angle was choked off before it began.
”That one could`ve been bad publicity for us,” a Daley aide conceded.
”Maybe it is luck.”
And the mayor has avoided scrutiny on issues that, fairly or unfairly, would have hit other mayors. When crime statistics rose, Harold Washington heard about it. Yet when Chicago police staffing hit its lowest point in 20 years and major crime figures rose, his opponents did not make it an issue.
Although some critics such as Ald. Lawrence Bloom (5th), give Daley generally good marks on management, others are still out there, waiting for him to slip. Byrne, who doesn`t rule out a run against Daley in 1991, says she sees through it all.
”It`s all planned press conferences that are pap, hand-fed, handprinted and no questions asked,” Byrne said. ”I don`t think the priorities of this administration are any different, (it`s) for big business, fat cats, bond counselors, all the perks that go with pinstripe patronage while the little guys out here are hurting and hurting badly.”