Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

[laughingimp]

Here's the thing about corruption in Illinois politics: the key words are pay-to-play. Sure, we'll give you state contracts, but you'll have to do something for us in exchange. Kick back a cut of your profits. Get my son-in-law a job in your firm. Raise a ton of money for our war coffers. Something like that

Comments

[telaryn]

Another brilliant essay sweetheart - any chance of unlocking it?

We Shall See...

[sillymagpie]

Hmmm... Interesting. I assume, though, that speculations about the well-timed downfall of rivals that supposedly led to Obama's elections in Illinois are hard to prove, or McCain and his supporters would surely have latched onto them in their campaign commercials.

I agree with you that no one comes out of the Chicago machine without being a bit dirty. But sometimes you do have to know how to play the game, and I doubt any president has come into office without paying back some political "favors." (I am certain, for instance, that Obama paid Hillary's campaign expenses and received her endorsement because he cut the deal with her then to be Speaker of the House.) The question is whether Obama's appointees will screw over the American people--in which case, **** 'em.

I see that one of your tags is "Chicago = Gotham City." I've always felt the same way. Although Gotham is technically supposed to be New York, the Gotham of the Dark Knight in particular has always seemed like Chicago to me.

[laughingimp]

Honestly, I'm not sure why the McCain/Palin camp didn't make hay out of all of this. They seemed to put all their chips on linking Barack Obama to Bill Ayers, and when most of us didn't bite at that, the Republicans seemed like they were at a loss.

On the one hand, I think this signals an admirable reluctance on the part of McCain/Palin to play Rovian politics, because Rove's playbook never runs out of attacks, ever. On the other hand, crooked Chicago politics is what this observer would call low-hanging fruit.

Also, this isn't the first time Republicans have crafted an attack campaign based on Vietnam-era divisions--remember when George Senior attacked Bill Clinton for being a "draft dodger?" And let's not even get into the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth [sic]. But I think that plan fails every time*, because far more people fall on the side of Vietnam-era protesters than the Republicans imagine. (Even I was surprised by how little people seemed to care about the Bill Ayers connection--the fact that Obama's middle name is