POLITICS

I Smell The Meat A Cookin'

By Stump Connolly

Fri 21, July 2006

Former Secretary of State Paul Powell was a legendary figure in downstate Illinois politics, both during his life and afterward. The most often told story about Powell is how, after his death in 1970, investigators found $800,000 in cash stuffed in shoeboxes in his closet.

But Powell also had a renowned nose for the deal. In the waning days of the legislative session when lawmakers began wrangling over their favorite pork barrel programs, Powell would appear suddenly on the floor and grandly announce “I smell the meat a cookin’.”

I had Powell in my mind when I went down to the Allegro Hotel Tuesday to watch the Cook County Democratic Committee meet to slate a replacement for the ailing John Stroger on the November ballot.

In the old days, it was called The Bismarck and slate-making sessions were presided over by none other than Mayor Richard J. Daley himself. The committee is composed of party bosses from each of Chicago’s 50 wards and all 30 of the outlying Cook County townships, but Daley ran the sessions with an iron fist in the secrecy of what we all came to call a smoke-filled room.

A lot has changed since then. When I enter the Allegro, there are three bicyclists in spandex and helmets standing in the lobby and the air is filled with a flighty background tune called “Love The One You’re With.” But the room is the same and, although it is now a no-smoking zone, so are many of the characters.

The committeemen are meeting to choose a new candidate for president of the county board, with the choice now narrowed down to either Stroger’s son, Todd Stroger, a quiet alderman who has served five unremarkable years in the city council, or Congressman Danny K. Davis, who, as he pointed out in his opening remarks, has served 11 years on the city council, six on the county board and nearly 10 in Congress, earning along the way three college degrees, including a doctorate in public administration, and five honorary degrees from Chicago colleges and universities.

Obviously, Davis was not going to win. But an open meeting of the Democratic committeeman is a fine way to spend a day observing the sartorial splendor of the party bosses and sampling their roller coaster ride of rhetoric, which is as thrilling any you’ll find in Great America.

The first to arrive is Mike Madigan, the committeeman of the 13th ward in Chicago who, in his side job, is also Speaker of the Illinois House (and father of Attorney General Lisa Madigan.)

Madigan, 64, was born into the Democratic machine. His father was a precinct captain and 13th ward

superintendent, and Madigan himself has served as committeeman there for 30 years. In the new openness of the party, he is the perfect choice to chair the session: polite, firm and orderly, putting a sharp, youthful face on the proceedings.

Close on his heels is Ald. William Beavers (7th ward), the wily South Side politician who, over the last months, has stage-managed every step of John Stroger’s resignation and Todd Stroger’s campaign to replace him.

Beavers is a colorful politician, in dress and language. When County Clerk David Orr suggested two weeks ago that Stroger forces might have withheld critical medical information to discourage a 3rd party challenge, Beavers called him “a little poop butt.” And just last week, when the Rev. Jesse Jackson Jr, said his wife might run for Beavers’ aldermanic seat (which Beavers has already promised to his daughter Darcel), he responded, “Let her try. He can’t raise one dime against me.”

Beavers arrives wearing a silver grey suit with a striped gold tie, lapel kerchief, a gold chain bracelet, and matching gold ring about the size of Bremen Township. Like all good stage managers, he intends to say nothing at the session – if you have the votes, why talk? -- but he makes a point of circulating through the spectator section shaking every hand. “I’m a good politician. I shake everybody’s hand,” he told me as he passed through. “Now I gotta go get me a smoke.”

The other committeemen are now arriving in bunches. Danny Davis comes in a cloud of supporters. They quickly fill the 20 seats set aside for the public and spill over onto the window sills. “I like the way they invite the public, then provide no chairs,” one sneers. Madigan starts the meeting on time and moves quickly to call the roll, gather proxy votes and invite nominations.

The dynamics of the battle between Stroger and Davis become immediately apparent when West Side Alderman Ike Carothers (29th ward) puts Davis’s name into nomination, and South Side Alderwoman Freddrenna Lyle (6th ward) nominates Todd Stroger.

For weeks, it has been apparent the Democrats would only nominate a black candidate to succeed Stroger, but among blacks, it has become a point of contention whether it would be a West Side black or a South Side black. In the years since Harold Washington became mayor, the Democratic machine has relied increasingly on black ward bosses for high voter turnout, and none was more prolific that John Stroger, committeeman for the South Side 8th ward.

West side bosses have long resented the fact that, even though they work just as hard and also turn out large Democratic pluralities, Stroger has favored his own ward and the adjoining ward of Beavers with the spoils of politics, county jobs.

In just those two wards, one study showed, there are 7,000 county workers – almost 30% of the Democratic vote total there. By contrast, in Carothers ward and any other on the west side, there are less than 1,000.

In his opening speech, Davis would touch on this, saying, “I don’t like the idea of children growing up in my neighborhood feeling that they have to move to another community to be seriously considered for a job in county government. I don’t like the idea that the community where I have chosen to live and work is sometimes treated like a stepchild by government bodies, bureaucrats and other elected officials. I don’t like the idea that family ties and pedigree will continue to trump other kinds of experience credentials . . ."

[He would, in fact, say many profound things – in such a masterful command of political oratory, that I am reprinting his remarks in full here. But because our focus in on the committeemen, I will skip both Stroger’s and Davis’s speeches to let the committeemen strut their stuff. ]

The formalities out of the way Madigan opened the door to committeeman comments.

Ald. Carothers, after nominating Davis, now stood to endorse him again, sort of:

“Many might say I am the least likely person to support the candidacy of Danny Davis, but I can tell you that I do believe in that old adage that there are no permanent friends and no permanent enemies in this business . . . and not only because he’s from the west side, which I believe is the best side . . . but because he served on that board . . . and served on this body.”

When it came to supporting Todd Stroger, Ald. Lyle wanted to take on the issue of nepotism first-hand. She recited a list of 32 politicians nationwide, including George Bush Sr. who supported their sons or daughters for public office. “This is not a Chicago phenomenon,” she said. “All over the country, when there is a vacancy within the party, the party selects . . . this is the process. This isn’t some made-up Mashengenation the Democratic party created.”

Just when things appeared to be dying down, Ald. Burt Natarus, the committeeman from Chicago’s 42nd ward, decided the committeemen needed to hear his two-cents worth. Natarus is famous for wanting to put diapers on carriage horses, fine panhandlers for getting too close to people (how would they pay?) and make

strip joints post prices for “all services rendered.” His ward includes the Gold Coast of Chicago, Michigan Avenue and the Cabrini Green housing projects, where he has systematically devoured his voting base through demolition. The only reason he remains in office, I guess, is that rich people are just like poor people: too lazy to vote the idiot out.

In his endorsement of the young Stroger, Natarus was strolling along the well-worn path of praising Stroger as “a good man” and calling Davis “an outstanding Congressman” when he decided to let the committeemen in on the greatest problem facing America today, and Davis’s indifference to it:

Actions speak louder than words. I said to my Congressman what is the most important issue that people who are poor, people who are middle class . . . and wealthy people – THE DELIVERY OF THE UNITED STATES MAIL STINKS!

And Danny Davis is the postal sub-committee chairman of the Congress of the United States. I don’t know how many times I called him. I don’t know how many times I’ve visited with him. And at the last Congressional hearing they had down at the postal commission office in Chicago, I was the only public official there . . . and it’s because Danny Davis, who should be an expert at this, will not negotiate with the union.

The union doesn’t do its job. And of all the places of the United States where Afro-Americans have an opportunity for benefits, with good pay, to do a job, it’s the postal service. They have a lock on it. And that’s fine . . . I’m for it. I want ‘em to have it. They can have it.

But I want service. But when I go to my Congressman, he won’t do anything about it. I even had him in my community. I had a big public meeting in my community at the Latin School (a private high school) and he wouldn’t do anything about it.

I like him. I think he should stay in the Congress . . .

But I don’t think he has the practical administrative ability . . . so I am going to support whole-heartedly Todd Stroger. Thank you.

Listening to Natarus was like watching a shuttle mission launch in Florida and veer off to attack Lebanon.

Another flamboyant speaker was Ald. Dorothy Tillman (3rd ward), who began her career with Davis two decades ago as one of the brash reformers in the Harold Washington era. It took Tillman several twists of logic to explain why she now was in Todd Stroger’s corner.

She began with a long-winded story about the night his father came to her 3rd ward Democratic Dinner and regaled her precinct captains with tales of the old days in Chicago politics. “He was glowing that night,” she recalled, “and when he left, I said he should go home and get some rest . . . and the next morning when I woke up, I found he’d been rushed to the hospital.”

The moral of the story? Think twice before you go to the next 3rd Ward Democratic Dinner.

Tillman said she was opposing Davis because if he won the nomination, “two or three other guys will wake up tomorrow morning with their eyes on Congress . . . and we’ll be back here again fighting over them.” She admitted that she has spent five years in the city council with Todd Stroger, but only started talking to him recently. Still she has discovered he is “a very sincere and strong person” who will “take us to the next level.”

Lou Lang, the committeeman from Niles Township, also rose to explain his vote for Todd Stroger.

Lang somehow decided he would put his own special spin on Stroger’s familial relations, arguing that Todd was being discriminated against because he’s a Stroger. “People have said he’s not entitled to the job because his name is Stroger,” Lang said. “That’s a bunch of garbage, ladies and gentlemen. Everyone has a right to pursue public office regardless of their name.”

After the requisite praise for Stroger’s undistinguished career in the state legislature, Lang finally got to the real reason he was climbing aboard the bandwagon. “I spent a good deal of time with Todd talking about the suburbs,” he said. “This man, Todd Stroger . . .will remember the cook county suburbs and he’ll remember people called the suburban committeeman of Cook County.”

Lang, apparently, was not the only one to get that assurance since 23 of the 30 suburban committeemen wound up supporting Stroger.

Mike Wojcik (30th ward) is an old time ward boss from the city’s northwest side who was recently forced to give up his aldermanic seat to Reboyras Arial in what is an increasingly Hispanic neighborhood. The slating sessions of the county Democratic committeemen are old home week for Wojcik, a chance to tell his fellow bosses how much he appreciates them.

“One of things we don’t want do is make the mistake of disunity, of looking like we don’t care about each other,” he said. “I know this about each and every person in this room. I worked with them for 15, 20 years. I owe everything I have to the people in this room,” he said. “People in my neighborhood owe everything and their lives to the people in this room.”

With the nomination of Todd Stroger, he added, the Democrats would be choosing a great “concilitator” who can ‘bring us together.”

In that same vein, Ald. Howard Brookins representing the predominantly black 21st ward on the South Side, praised Stroger as “battle-tested” and “an alpha man.”

“Todd Stroger has been there. He’s more than well qualified,” Brookins concluded, “and it’s time for our generation as the torch has been passed from one son to one father. It’s time to stand up and take the reins.”

When all was said and done, Madigan asked the party secretary Robert Martwick to take a roll call vote. Stroger, as expected, had 57 committeemen in his corner, compared to 19 for Stroger, winning 78% of the weighted votes.

Davis and Stroger left the room arm in arm, like they had just finished a well-played tennis match. As much as the reporters tried, they couldn’t get Beavers to step before the cameras to talk about how he had orchestrated this triumph. So I followed him out of the hotel onto the sidewalk, where he immediately lit up a smoke.

“How do you like being in a smoke-filled room where you can’t smoke?” I asked him.

“Oh, it’s just like being on an airplane,” he said, “you just sit there and read or sleep.”