Chicago Mayor Daley: 'There's no machine'

By Bruce Thompson

Chicago's Mayor Richard M. Daley is quoted as saying so in Thrusday's Chicago Sun-Times

""Chicago and the metropolitan area is very Democratic and the state is. [But] there's no machine. I thought it was laughable."

The Obama campaign doesn't want the public to think that Barack Obama has ties to the Daley machine, and there is a good reason. The image of a pol working his way up the Daley Machine to the presidency hardly firs the carefully constructed image of reform, hope and change.

As to the current status of the Daley Machine, let's consult Sun-Times columnist Mark Brown

"No, it's too much. Somebody needs to tell him. Somebody needs to tell Bill Daley "no." He has no business running for governor of Illinois, not as long as brother Rich is mayor of Chicago and brother John is finance chairman of the Cook County Board.

No family should control that much political power."

In her speech at the Democratic Convention did Michelle Obama mention that her dad was a "city water plant employeee and precinct captain" for the original Boss, Richard M. Daley ? Remember we're talking about 1964 when Michelle was born, before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 written under the leadership of Senator Everett Dirksen (R-IL). Back in the days when Obama's predecessor as State Senator from Hyde Park Abner Mikva told the classic story

"One of the stories that is told about my start in politics is that on the way home from law school one night in 1948, I stopped by the ward headquarters in the ward where I lived. There was a street-front, and the name Timothy O'Sullivan, Ward Committeeman, was painted on the front window. I walked in and I said "I'd like to volunteer to work for Stevenson and Douglas." This quintessential Chicago ward committeeman took the cigar out of his mouth and glared at me and said, "Who sent you?" I said, "Nobody sent me." He put the cigar back in his mouth and he said, "We don't want nobody that nobody sent." This was the beginning of my political career in Chicago."

Or did she mention that Valerie Jarrett hired her away from Sidley & Austin to join the staff of Mayor Richard M. Daley? That in addition to playing matchmaker for Michelle & Barack, that Ms. Jarrett was Daley's Deputy Chief of Staff at the time? That she is deeply involved in housing for the poor, like Mrs. Obama and her maternal grandfather Robert Taylor (namesake of the largest public housing project ever built, but then subsequently torn down because it was a place of chaos, despair and crime) and of course Obama's fundraising acquaintance Tony Rezko?

As they say in Chicago "Move along, nothing to see here. Move along!"