chicagodads

Illinois Democrat Adlai Stevenson - two-time contender for president and both times defeated by former General Dwight D. Eisenhower - arose from the seed of what would become one of the most powerful political machines in the 20th century US.

Harry S. Truman (whom many consider one of the greatest of US presidents) came up from under the tutelage and arm of Kansas City “boss” Tom Pendergast (not to be confused with Teddy).

Joseph P. Kennedy was, to say the least, ambitious and controlling and wielded whatever formidable power he could amass to put his sons into the highest offices of power. Owning a prime piece of real estate in Chicago would help.

According to Mike Royko, the elder Richard J. Daley was enthusiastic at first about one of his own raising to the ranks of governor and then president. But his favor cooled against Stevenson as he decided he did not care for the fastidiousness, the intellectualism, the perceived elitism, the liberalism, or the reform platform of Stevenson.  But he did promise John Kennedy (whose family owned the Merchandise Mart and who, like Daley, is also Irish and Catholic as well as Northern and Democrat) that he would hand him Illinois. That’s something that Stevenson wasn’t even able to garner for himself. Daley felt that Kennedy was one of his own.

Yet, it wasn’t until Kennedy was in the Oval Office that he started to sense the dramatic sea change in culture and began to be more progressive, more idealistic, more, how shall we say, liberal and reformist.

Obama, on the other hand, isn’t like any of these other cats.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS