Chicago has been run by Democrats since the 38th mayor, Anton Cermak, was sworn in 79 years ago.
Cermak beat Chicago's last Republican mayor, Big Bill Thompson, by 191,916 votes on April 7, 1931. In Chicago: A Biography, Dominic A. Pacyga writes "Cermak took office within 48 hours and got to work."
Cermak took over a political machine that Chicago author Richard Lindberg in The Gambler King of Clark Street: Michael C. McDonald and the Rise of Chicago's Democratic Machine tells us was created by McDonald when he fused Chicago's criminal underworld with the city's political and commercial spheres.
The only Irish ward that was among those delivering the largest majorities for Czech-born Cermak, Pacyga writes, was Joe McDonough's in Bridgeport "where the alderman's aide was Richard J. Daley, a young and ambitious Democrat who worked hard for the organization as he made his way through law school at night."
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Do you think this could be part of the problem? When you never have new ideas nothing really can change...Change now that can be an over-rated word!
This is an indictment of the inability of Republicans to offer a real alternative. They don't. A Chicago election is usually a choice between a bad idea (incumbent democrat) and a really bad idea (any republican). So, let's stop blaming the electorate for consistently choosing the lesser of two evils.
Bring back the GOP and my guy, Big Bill Thompson!!!
>> BritBurnsWasTheMan states: "A Chicago election is usually a choice between a bad idea (incumbent democrat) and a really bad idea (any republican)."
It's this kind of blanket judgement that has resulted in Chicago's current state. Anyone who votes on party alone gets what he deserves.
(... and then has the gall to complain about it!)