THE KEY TO INFLUENCE: FEED THE REPORTERS FRESH SALMON

Ninety-five percent of the nation looked aghast on the contemptuousness of that shnook Blagojevich. We Chicagoans knew better. We snicker at you rubes who think that duplicity like his happens only on bad TV.

Sociology-types would trace Blagojevich’s blatant double-dealing to the fast-and-loose atmosphere set by Hizonner da Mare Richard J. Daley. They do beg comparison. No matter how much Blagojevich would have prospered financially, he would always have been a second-stringer.

Mayor Daley appeared unimpressed with money. He and his beloved Sis continued to live in the modest home Back of the (Stock) Yards, along with descendants of the other Irish immigrants. Aside from tailored suits to flatter his matzo-ball girth, he played himself as one of the people.
Sheer power was Mayor Daley’s rate of exchange, elevating the faithful everyman and humbling the disloyal bigshot. Mayor Daley was the one, after all who “found” the extra box of ballots that put JFK over the top, ensuring the presidency for a Democrat coreligionist.

Blagojevich collected his bounty in payoffs. Mayor Daley collected a court of loyalists who paid homage to his agenda, and thus themselves became rich – a judge here, an alderman there, graft, porkpie, and the cumulatively effect of minor acts of corruption.

Loyalty had its benefits for the commoner, as well. Before each election, Harry Speck appeared at our doorstep. As a kid, I thought he was some kind of important public official. Actually, he was one of Hizzoner’s precinct captains, attempting to buy voter loyalty by offering to fix any of my dad’s outstanding traffic tickets. As a law enforcement officer, my dad made quick dispatch of him.

This did not stop my dad from wrapping a $5 bill around his driver’s license, as all Chicagoans did, so when stopped by a cop, the cop smiled and told him to “be more careful the next time.”

When I got a little older, I too learned the ropes of Pax Daleyum. Once I was in a fender-bender and cited for negligence. I called my insurance man. He told me to bring $40 to traffic court and give it to his lawyer, Newberger. That’s all it would take. “What if we lose?” I sputtered like a dope.

“You won’t lose.”

Sure enough, at the appointed hour, I presented Newberger $40 in cash. When my case was called, he approached the docket. Apparently, the arresting cop had not shown up. The case was dismissed for failure to produce prosecution. $20 to Newberger, $20 to the cop. But, we didn’t lose.

Heaven forbid, though, if you were a resident of the 46th Ward, where all the anti-corruption, intellectual liberals lived. Hizzoner was the bane of their existence. He and the machine were well aware of this, hence the deepest potholes in the streets, the never-to-be-fixed broken curbs, the monthly accumulation of street-side garbage. Go ahead. Be idealistic. Just be prepared to break an axle. We, the faithful, had our potholes repaved at the first sign of spring.

The real story of Daley’s Chicago was not about retribution. Often it was the warning implicit in the humor of the mighty, like the good-natured fun he poked at the press. Once he suggested that the Department of Sanitation (!) stock the Chicago River with salmon, as it meandered between the Tribune Tower and the hideous Sun-Times building. At noontime, he said, let the City give the reporters fishing rods, provide them with open grills and plenty of cold beer. “You’d be surprised,” Hizzoner opined, “how much better your attitude would be before we held one of those 1:00 press conferences.”

This, friends, is not a Blagojevich move.

This is why, by Illinois standards, he would always be a second-stringer. He demanded money, not the power and influence that comes from people paying homage to a fearsome, yet imminently loveable, humpty-dumpty Irishman. Greedy Blagojevich would wind up in jail because he practiced slimy greed, not graciously dyeing the river green for St. Patrick’s Day.

Once-Governor Blagojevich will forever be remembered as a greasy punk. Not Hizzoner da Mare. He fixed the curbs, filled the potholes, collected the garbage, ran the CTA buses in blizzards, made a president, fed the reporters fresh salmon. Blagojevich thought it took $500,000 to become a heavy hitter. Mayor Daley had already figured out that all it took was a sawbuck wrapped around a driver’s license to buy you all the influence you needed and then some.