THE FIGHT’S OVER IN THE 47TH

2/23/11

So given that the mayor’s race yesterday was such an anticlimactic bust that would have prompted me to break out a copy of the great Peggy Lee’s “Is That All There Is?” if I had a copy of that classic (That I don’t is surprising even to me; I guess I have to learn how to use that i-Pod my wife gave me a few Christmases ago and download a copy, but I digress.), what race did I find the most interesting?

The most interesting election by far yesterday,, at least in hindsight, took place in the 47th Ward, in which I lived for a year in the early ‘80s and which is easily one of the nicest wards in the city, encompassing Lincoln Square, Welles Park, Queen of Angels Parish, Lutz’s Continental Pastry (still a delight even in its watered down current state), and other vestiges and old haunts of the city’s once thriving, almost dominant, German community. In the former “Fighting 47th,” Tom O’Donnell, despite having been handpicked by Alderman and Committeeman Gene Schulter to succeed him in the former post, was defeated outright by political neophyte Ameya Pawar, 50.8% to 43.5%. This shocked much of the political and media establishment, which assumed, understandably, that the Regular Democratic Organization in the old Fighting 47th could surely elect its handpicked candidate for alderman.

Looking at Mr. Schulter’s history, one can easily come up with some perhaps too conspiratorial reasons for Mr. O’Donnell’s loss; Mr. Schulter has something of a checkered political past. Most recently, he sought a seat on the Board of Review, formerly the Board of (Tax) Appeals, historically a notorious sinecure for hacks, hangers-on, toadies, lackeys, and former somebodies who are simply tired or who have run out of options for further slopping at the public trough. Mr. Schulter, however, was not selected for that post. Why? The best guess is that Mr. Schulter crossed the man he wanted to replace, Joe Berrios, when Mr. Schulter backed Mr. Berrios’s opponent, Forest Claypool, in the race for County Assessor. Mr. Berrios, as nominal head of the Cook County Regular Democratic Organization, has a certain degree of influence, even with the likes of Judge Timothy Evans, who was responsible for selecting the new Board of Review Commissioner.

Earlier in his career, Mr. Schulter crossed (Some might say “stabbed in the back,” but I didn’t…necessarily) his mentor, former 47th Ward Committeeman Ed Kelly, who wrested control of the ward from the Republicans in the ‘70s and installed the then young Mr. Schulter as alderman in 1975. In 2000, Mr. Schulter, not content with the aldermanic job, decided he wanted his mentor’s job as well and ran against Mr. Kelly for Committeeman. Mr. Kelly won by 155 votes after a bruising, highly personalized campaign that prompted Mr. Kelly to say of Mr. Schulter:

"He's a real piece of shit...We're going to retire him."

Source: Paul Green, Crain’s Chicago Business, 4/10/10

Mr. Kelly never succeeded in forcing Mr. Schulter out of the alderman’s job and retired as committeeman in 2003 to be quickly replaced by Mr. Schulter.

Gene Schulter’s a tough guy and an effective alderman and committeeman, but he couldn’t carry for his handpicked successor. Some might speculate that some of the people he crossed over the years, most pertinently Joe Berrios, or perhaps some old timers who came up under Ed Kelly and could still be harboring grudges against Schulter, may have secretly worked for Mr. Pawar only to defeat Mr. O’Donnell. This might make sense and surely would appeal to the conspiracy theorists out there.

While I like a good conspiracy as much as the next guy, I think that Gene Schulter’s inability to carry for Tom O’Donnell was nothing more than a manifestation of a phenomenon that was reflected in the mayor’s race, to wit, the old ward organizations, on life support for decades now, are finished. With the Shakman Decree and other legal action against patronage hiring, the ward bosses no longer have an effective mechanism for keeping the troops, and the voters, in line. It took years for the old loyalties and ways of doing things to finally die off, but die off they did. In the larger elections, like the mayor’s race, the media trumps the precinct captain. In the smaller races, the smaller media, and dedicated groups of volunteers, can, with only a little more difficulty, similarly defeat the precinct captain and the ward organizations.

When a guy as seemingly powerful as Gene Schulter can’t elect an alderman, you can stick a fork in the old-time ward organizations.