Sweet — and sour — home Chicago
City's political image a risk for Obama
By Bob Secter and John McCormick
www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-obama-chicago_23jun23,0,4206167.story
chicagotribune.com
CAMPAIGN 2008
Tribune reporters
10:43 PM CDT, June 22, 2008
He meant it as a joke, but when Barack Obama recently parodied a famous line from "The Untouchables" he also dredged up the reputation of his longtime home as a place that is rough, raw and unlikely to breed reform.
"If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun," Obama said during a Philadelphia fundraiser, explaining the Chicago-style approach to hard-nosed politics.
As the first African-American to lock up a major-party presidential nomination, Obama has been the subject of much analysis that understandably focuses on race.
But Americans also have never sent a Chicagoan to the White House, and one intriguing question posed by his candidacy is whether they are ready to now.
For all his talk about change, Obama remains a product of a Chicago and Illinois political culture renowned for corruption and filled with characters who range from felonious to just outrageous.
Illinois Senate President Emil Jones, Obama's mentor in Springfield, is about as old-school as they come. Just last month, the Chicago Democrat publicly ridiculed an attempt to block a pay raise for legislators by sarcastically declaring: "I've got to get me some food stamps."
Obama's stable of political friends is populated with others like Jones, and when he has dabbled in city and Cook County politics in recent years he has frequently failed to come down on the side of progressives.
Whether any of that will matter in November is an open question, but Obama clearly is betting he can benefit from Chicago's reputation for toughness without being tainted by its darker political side.
In underscoring his change theme, he made the deliberate decision in 2007 to base his campaign in Chicago, not Washington. And word spread recently that Obama is moving key elements of the Democratic National Committee's operations to the city.
Even so, some supporters acknowledge that voters in states such as Ohio, Missouri or Pennsylvania may find it hard to relate to someone steeped in the Chicago political way. "What plays locally doesn't necessarily play on a national stage," said U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.).
Hometown hot seat
Indeed, the most damaging controversies of Obama's presidential bid have been rooted in Chicago, where he is hardly alone among mainstream politicians in cozying up to controversial ministers like Jeremiah Wright Jr. and Michael Pfleger, fundraisers like Antoin "Tony" Rezko and even former radicals like William Ayers.
Republicans already are seeking to exploit Obama's once-chummy and politically beneficial relationship with Rezko, the influential developer convicted this month on federal corruption charges for misusing clout. Obama had nothing to do with the case, but his name still came up during the trial.
Republican National Committee spokesman Alex Conant said Obama's ties to a long list of Chicago politicians are ripe for attack. "It undermines his campaign's message that he represents something new," he said.
Obama's status as a Chicago politician carries with it risks, said James Thurber, director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University in Washington. "It is the place to learn about politics, but it is also a running joke about the machines of the past. That can hurt him."
The mix of Chicagoans and outsiders in Obama's headquarters can at times lead to a view of events through differing prisms. A telling incident was the internal reaction when video surfaced on the Internet of Obama's friend, Pfleger, making derisive comments about Hillary Clinton from the pulpit of what until recently was Obama's South Side church.
Staffers from Illinois were more inclined to shrug it off. They had grown accustomed to hearing over-the-top pronouncements from Pfleger, an outspoken Roman Catholic priest. Those from elsewhere were more likely to appreciate the potential for a public relations nightmare.
Obama has compiled an eclectic blend of Illinois political friends, and that fits nicely with a campaign theme that he is a conciliator uniquely suited to navigate the worlds of old and new politics and capable of bridging the divide between conservatives and liberals. He also claims he has avoided the sleaze.
"I think that I have done a good job in rising politically in this environment without being entangled in some of the traditional problems of Chicago politics," he told reporters and editors at the Tribune earlier this year.
David Axelrod, Obama's top strategist, has advised many Chicago politicians, including the current mayor. He said he does not believe a "guilt by association" strategy will work against Obama.
"The germane point here about Barack Obama is not where he came up, but how," Axelrod said. "He was not a creature of a [city] political organization, and was first elected as a political independent and was a voice for reform in the legislature."
Obama's political gymnastics have led to moments of awkwardness. In 2006 he tiptoed away from endorsing his friend Forrest Claypool in a Democratic primary challenge to then- Cook County Board President John Stroger, the target of widespread charges of waste and cronyism.
Last year, Obama disappointed Illinois union activists when he endorsed the re-election bid of then-3rd Ward Ald. Dorothy Tillman, always a lightning rod for controversy. Organized labor was furious with Tillman for backing the entry of non-union Wal-Mart into the city, and she lost to challenger Pat Dowell—a longtime friend of Obama's wife.
Some of Obama's more blunt political pals in Illinois admit they've been struggling to hold their tongues of late for fear it could reflect badly on him.
"This is a big picture we're talking about now, and everything we do here is going to be under a microscope nationally," said state Sen. Terry Link (D-Waukegan), a former poker-playing buddy of Obama's in Springfield.
The gruff-talking Jones is rarely one to mince words, but he's starting to when it comes to Obama. "One cannot always be responsible for everything that someone else says and one should not be held accountable for the words of others who may support you," he said recently.
Cultural gap
The most explosive problems facing Obama in recent months were, of course, statements made by Wright, his longtime pastor.
Timuel Black, a professor emeritus at the City Colleges of Chicago, said African-American churches in the city have traditionally been a center of social activism and that ministers often get quite earthy on the pulpit. "Much of the black political base in Chicago had its roots in the church," Black said.
That's a big reason mainstream Chicago politicians, Obama and Mayor Richard Daley included, actively court the support of influential pastors, including controversial ones.
The political dynamic is widely understood in Chicago, but less so elsewhere.
"It's something that's a novelty to most of white America," said Alton Miller, press secretary to Chicago's first black mayor, the late Harold Washington. Miller, who is white and was raised in Ohio, said his relatives back home have a hard time relating to the pulpit style of Obama's friends in the black clergy.
"That doesn't happen in their church," Miller said. "Part of it is a cultural differential that Obama and his team are going to have to deal with as a special case."
Jackson agreed. The South Side congressman said he once considered running for the U.S. Senate seat won by Obama in 2004 but backed off, in part because of his father, outspoken Rainbow/PUSH Coalition founder Rev. Jesse Jackson.
"If Jeremiah Wright has YouTube videos, then just think what they've got of my father," he said.
Tribune reporter Rick Pearson contributed to this report.
bsecter@tribune.com
mccormickj@tribune.com
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