Chicago
By MILTON RAKOVE

'You can't beat somebody with nobody'

AS THIS is written, seven weeks before the November 4 election, it is difficult to tell how the State of Illinois will go in the presidential race. But one thing is certain still — President Jimmy Carter will carry the City of Chicago over Republican candidate Ronald Reagan. That short-term situation is not hard to prognosticate. But the long-term relationship of the Chicago Democratic machine and the national Democratic Party is another matter to evaluate.

The 1980 presidential election is the first such election in a quarter of a century in which the firm hand of the late Mayor Richard J. Daley is not on the tiller of the local Democratic ship of state as the machine prepares for its quadrennial national political effort.

During the Daley years in Chicago, presidential, as well as statewide candidates, not only had to defer to the late mayor's wishes on matters of electoral strategy, but were prohibited from forming citizens' organizations to support their candidates without his permission. In 1964, when I was Governor Otto Kerner's director of research in his gubernatorial campaign, we had Citizens for Kerner groups everywhere in Illinois, except in Chicago. Daley had notified us that such a group was not needed in Chicago. It was his city and he would take care of it. In 1977, Mayor Jane Byrne told me in an interview that in the 1960 presidential election, Daley "didn't even want the Kennedy headquarters in Chicago. ... He felt that there was a Chicago Democratic Party and he didn't need a Kennedy headquarters. The local party was sufficient."

But the 1960 and 1964 elections came at the heyday of Daley's power and the height of the Chicago machine's efficiency. The presidential elections of 1968 and 1972 were sharp blows to Daley. His influence in choosing his party's presidential candidates was diminished, as was the role his Chicago machine played in the elections. The Grant Park riot in 1968 and the McGovern rules fight in 1972, which culminated in the Daley delegation being denied their seats in the convention, ended Daley's kingmaker role in national Democratic politics. In 1976, Daley missed the boat, having waited too long to endorse Jimmy Carter. In other words, the deterioration of the Chicago machine's role in Democratic national politics has been progressive, from its peak in the 1960 and 1964 elections.

There are four forces at work which make it certain that the role of the Chicago machine in Democratic national politics will not be a major one in the future

After Daley's death on December 20, 1976, President Carter, accurately reading the tea leaves of the Chicago scene, practically ignored County Chairman George Dunne and the Chicago machine on matters of patronage, status and influence. The breach grew steadily wider between the White House and the Chicago machine.

1980 has marked a significant widening of that breach. Mayor Byrne's slap in the face to President Carter and her premature endorsement of Ted Kennedy, opened wide a chasm that cannot be bridged by the current players in the game.

What of the future in the relationship between the Chicago machine and the national Democratic Party?

There is no going back to the old relationship, whether Carter wins or loses. If Carter wins, he can do what he wants to do about the Chicago machine, since he will not have to run for office again. If he loses, the new leaders of the national Democratic Party, whoever they are, will take cognizance of the reality of the Chicago situation.

There are four forces at work which make it certain that the role of the Chicago machine in Democratic national politics will not be a major one in the future: (1) the massive population decline in the city; (2) the population explosion in the suburbs; (3) the fact that Chicago's population does not have to be intensively wooed by Democratic presidential candidates (it has no place else to go politically); and (4) the reality of the machine's decline as a force in national politics.

Does this mean the hopes of reformers, critics and opponents of the machine will finally be realized and that they will take over the city?

Not at all. Though weaker nationally, statewide, and even at the county level, the machine is still the only game in town. There is an old political cliche which is still relevant in Chicago: "You can't beat somebody with nobody." There is, at present, no viable alternative to the machine in the city. Because there is nobody to beat the somebodies, because of the makeup of the city's population, because of this population's needs and desires, the machine will almost certainly survive in Chicago. Its makeup will change; it will be less relevant to the national and statewide scene, but it will still be endemic to and representative of a changing city.

32/November 1980/Illinois Issues