Yeah, good one. I read Boss in high school; I started reading Royko’s columns when I was in grade school. To me, his columns were just like listening to my family discuss politics!

But, it’s far from just Chicago—the entire state is corrupt. And always has been. Most downstate counties have a Machine just as well-oiled as Chicago’s, with the difference being the “R”. Before the Rutan decision, the city of Springfield job applications asked for voter registration and voter ID number, relatives holding political office, union membership, party affiliation, the party affliation of close family members, campaign contributions made, hours available to dedicate to the Republican party (walking precincts, putting up posters, phonebanking, selling raffle tickets, etc.), party voted for in the previous eight years, willingness to vote for candidates endorsed by the local Republican party, etc. After Rutan, they retired the application as written—-but you still had to pass the same unwritten codes to get a City job.

To this day, many Springfield residents won’t vote in the primary, ‘cuz they don’t want their named party affiliation to “burn” them in the search to find or keep employment.

(And Chicago? My dad tells me that back in the sixties, their precinct committeeman in Chicago gave everybody with a “D” a roasting chicken for showing up on election day.)

Mike Royko’s books are a good start, especially Boss (as opposed to the anthologies of his columns).

Chicago is the “City that Works”. Corruption is so ingrained that people just figure that there’s little hope of getting rid of it. There are a lot of people that have a piece of it (like city jobs that you can keep just by working the precinct at election time), so there are a lot of people who have an interest in the status quo.

This is so true. And so hard to explain to people not from here.

Certainly made an impression on me. I was just thinking about it the other day.

He seems to currently be involved with some business in Saudi Arabia, and on lots of boards of directors. Not knowing the habits of these various organizations, I cannot comment. But then, our personal impressions of people are always personal, and always ultimately independent of what they really do in the larger pictures of their lives.

As far as his being a crook; Illinois voters don’t mind people being crooks so much, but they tend to be appalled by incompetence.

Any politician that doesn’t have the sense to get his picture taken with a really cute kid whenever possible deserves to lose the next election. Glad Sydney had a good experience in her first meeting with a politician though.