AP News, February 26th, 2007
Democrat Barack Obama piled on the praise last month as he stood beside Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and embraced the mayor's bid for a sixth term.
"I don't think there's a city in America that has blossomed as much over the last couple of decades than Chicago, and a lot of that has to do with our mayor," Obama said, supporting Daley ahead of Tuesday's city election.
It was a switch from a year earlier, when the Illinois senator brushed off questions about endorsing Daley and said reported corruption at Chicago's City Hall gave him "huge pause."
What happened in the meantime? Obama decided to run for president.
The endorsement is one example of the sometimes complicated relationship between Obama _ who offers himself as an untainted, non-traditional alternative _ and Illinois' sometimes tarnished political establishment.
While Obama prides himself as an independent-minded Democrat, he's maintained relations with important parts of the establishment, from remnants of the legendary Chicago Democratic machine to the city's leading black politicians.
Yet as an outsider who came to the city as an adult, he doesn't owe his political fortunes to ward bosses and can claim distance from the political corruption for which the city is famous. He's ruffled feathers in the past by taking on incumbents or bucking his party's anointed candidate in a statewide race, but he has also mended fences and now has Illinois' most important politicians lined up to support his run for president.
"He understands ... about politics and how you make friends in politics," said Rep. Bobby Rush, who Obama unsuccessfully challenged in 2000 for his seat in Congress.
Rush said Daley, for one, can be helpful to Obama because of his national reputation. Daley's brother, William, who headed Al Gore's presidential campaign in 2000, has already signed on as an Obama adviser.
Rush is also backing Obama's bid for the White House.
Growing up in Hawaii and Indonesia, Obama didn't come up through the ranks of traditional Chicago Democratic politics.
Obama writes in his book "The Audacity of Hope" that he got into his successful first race for the Illinois Senate at the encouragement of friends who thought his work as a civil rights lawyer and experience as a community organizer made him a good candidate.
That 1996 election put him in conflict with the incumbent, Alice Palmer. She planned to run for Congress and endorsed Obama as her successor. But when Palmer lost the congressional primary, Obama would not step aside so she could keep her state Senate seat.
Once he got to the state Senate, Obama was no radical. He became a political protege of current Senate President Emil Jones, a 35-year veteran of the legislature and one of the state's most influential black lawmakers.
Obama was in the Illinois Senate just a few years when he went after the congressional seat held by Rush.
In his book, Obama calls it an "ill-considered race," and he and another state senator who challenged Rush were trounced in the primary. Rush had the support of the powerful Cook County Board president and widespread support in his district.
Obama also was viewed as a long shot in his 2004 bid for the U.S. Senate. He decided to run even though most party leaders were backing the state comptroller, who was the son of a powerful Democratic leader. Other candidates included Mayor Daley's former chief of staff and a millionaire who had helped elect the Democratic governor. Obama's candidacy gained momentum when the millionaire businessman, who had once led in the polls, acknowledged striking his ex-wife and calling her names.
Once Obama's fortunes started rising with his starmaking address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention and his Senate win, he found almost uniform support from Illinois Democrats.
Yet Obama still didn't always stick to the party line, most notably last year when he rejected the party-backed candidate for state treasurer to support a political newcomer, putting him at odds with the state Democratic chairman, Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan of Chicago.
Over the summer, Madigan derisively referred to Obama as "the messiah" in a published report. But by early this year, Madigan was proposing moving up the state's 2008 primary from March 18 to Feb. 5 to give Obama more momentum early in the presidential race.
For his part, Obama has lined up with party leaders in some recent local races. He supported the party's choice to become the new Cook County board president, despite allegations of political nepotism surrounding the man, who was the son of the previous board president.
Obama also endorsed Daley, saying he was still concerned about City Hall corruption but thought Daley had taken steps to clean it up. And he supported the November re-election of Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich, whose administration is under federal investigation for hiring fraud.
Attorney Gery Chico, the Daley former chief of staff who lost to Obama in the 2004 Senate primary, said Obama has been under increasing pressure to play a role in local races and it's smart for him to get in the mix.
"You don't want to go the route of Al Gore," Chico said. Gore famously didn't win his home state of Tennessee in his failed bid for president in 2000.
But the Daley endorsement in particular _ featured in one of the mayor's campaign mailers _ isn't sitting right with some people in this city known for its legendary political machine.
Daley's father, the late Mayor Richard J. Daley, built the once-mighty machine that doled out jobs and favors in exchange for support for Democrats on Election Day. The courts have mostly dismantled the machine by outlawing political patronage, but the city's powerful Democrats _ like Daley _ can still turn out the vote.
Obama's decision to support Daley turned off voter Alan Dobry, who's part of a Chicago independent-voters group.
"He's trying to play with the machine," Dobry said. "I'm very unhappy about it."
