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Originally Posted by sentinel
I agree with a lot of this.
As an aside, I'm curious to know what kind of relationship Garcia had with Daley, while Da Mayor was in office..
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Their political pedigrees really couldn't possibly be more different.
Rahm's political pedigree is much closer to that of Daley's. Rahm worked as a fundraiser on Daley's 1989 campaign and in 2002 when he ran successfully for Congress he had Daley's backing and machine support. When Rahm first publicly mentioned an inkling to run for Mayor on the Charlie Rose show in 2010 he said "I hope Mayor Daley runs again but if he doesn't...". Granted he isn't as "machine" as many politicians you could name that spent all of most of their careers in Chicago but by any reasonable standard Rahm is closer to that then what Chuy Garcia is. Sure Rahm criticizes "the politics of the past" referring to the negative perceptions of the latter Daley years but he tip tows around it because he knows Daley is one of his political godfathers (along with Bill Clinton and Barack Obama).
Chuy Garcia became Alderman during the Mayorality of Harold Washington who is kind of the standard bearer of what is called a "reform politician" in the modern Chicago sense of the word. Chuy was elected Alderman and he broke the block of 29 machine Alderman so Washington could have a bloc of reform Alderman (including Chuy) to actually get some of his legislative accomplishments through. Washington soon thereafter died and a couple years later Richard M. Daley was elected Mayor. Chuy was elected to the Illinois State Senate a few years later only to be later be defeated in 1998 by Daley forces via the HDO (Hispanic Democratic Organization) an hispanic arm of the machine who's aim it was to defeat reform Hispanics like Chuy. Only recently in 2010 did Chuy return to elected office on the Cook County Board. Whatever relationship Daley and Chuy did have it was pretty minimal and probably quite adversarial. Daley did appoint Chuy's protege Ricardo Munoz 22nd Ward Alderman in 1993 (the office he still holds) when Chuy became state senator but I imagine that was more about Daley appeasing that constituency for his own political calculus than doing Chuy a favor.
Say what you want about Rahm, Chuy or Daley whether it be positive, negative or indifferent but get the political history right. The very idea that anyone is even wondering if Chuy is more of a Daley like politician (in style or substance) than Rahm is simply ludacris.
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