Another Daley in the mayor's office?

By ED McMANUS

A fter 21 years with a Daley as mayor, Chicago has gone 12 years without one. It's about to end. Richie Daley was considered by many to be the heir apparent to his father, Richard J. But the mayor dropped dead in 1976 when Richie was only 34 years old and had only four years experience as a state senator. So he had to wait.

He waited six years, then took on Mayor Jane Byrne. Both lost to a fellow named Harold Washington. Now he has waited another six years, and his time has come. On April 4, Richard M. Daley will be elected mayor.

A few weeks ago, it would have been foolhardy to have made that prediction. But week by week the dominoes have fallen, and it's clear that Son of Boss is about to take over City Hall.

By January, only two major opponents stood in his way, and neither had the stature to defeat him in a city wide election. Acting Mayor Eugene Sawyer will be his opponent in the Democratic primary February 28 and will attract a substantial black vote simply because he's the only credible black running — certainly not because the black community thinks much of him. Ald. Timothy Evans was circulating petitions to run as an independent in the April general election, and he has a great deal more popularity in the black community than Sawyer. But few whites or Hispanics will vote for either Sawyer or Evans, and there aren't enough blacks in town to elect either of them.

How did Daley end up in the catbird seat? It's an interesting story.

After eight years in the Senate, he ran for Cook County state's attorney in 1980 and won the first of three terms. His political image was at its worst in 1983 when he came in third in the mayoral primary behind Washington and Byrne and was widely criticized by the white community. Washington could not have defeated Byrne one-on-one, so Daley was labeled the spoiler.

Washington's reelection in April 1987 seemed to ensure that he'd be mayor for the rest of his life. Of course, no one knew his life would end seven months later. His death, as so often happens in politics as well as in other pursuits, gave life to the ambitions of Daley and a host of others.

A black-white city council coalition chose Sawyer to fill the vacancy. After much delay, the courts ruled that Sawyer couldn't serve in 1991, and that a special election must be held this spring.

The election outlook was muddled. A year ago many observers — including this one — doubted that Daley would run. For one thing, he was running for reelection as state's attorney in November. (As it turned out, he announced for mayor only four days after being sworn in for a new four-year term as state's attorney.) And it seemed that the blacks might hold on to City Hall for many years to come, especially if they came up with a candidate with some appeal outside the black community. But they didn't.

(As always, it's necessary to point out here that, while we'd like to focus more on issues, race continues to be the pivotal factor in Chicago politics.)

Equally as important, the Republican party failed to produce a viable candidate. That ruined Evans' strategy, which called for two whites — the Democratic candidate and a strong Republican — to split the white vote in the general election. Sheriff Jim O'Grady could have been a formidable Republican contender, but he opted out. Byrne and former Ald. Ed Vrdolyak both flirted with running for the Republican nomination but decided against it at the last minute. Either of them might have siphoned enough votes away from Daley to have given Evans a win.

Four aldermen — Evans, Edward Burke, Larry Bloom and Danny Davis —and ex-parks superintendent Ed Kelly were early candidates for the Democratic nomination, but only Bloom remains. Evans chose to run in the general election because he recognized that if he and Sawyer both stayed in the primary, they'd split

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the black vote. Bloom, a white liberal, is definitely an underdog.

To paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen, neither Evans nor Sawyer is a Harold Washington. Washington had one of those magic political personalities. The blacks absolutely loved him, and a significant number of whites and Hispanics admired him too. Other whites didn't necessarily like him, but they had grown to accept him; they had to admit that Chicago didn't fall apart after he became mayor.

Sawyer, a nice guy, is simply not mayoral caliber. He's not a leader to put bluntly. And he has several other liabilities: Serious questions have been raised about his ethics. He angered many people last spring by failing to promptly fire an aide who was making anti-Semitic statements. And a large segment of the black community won't forgive him for accepting the support of Washington's fiercest city council critics to get himself chosen acting mayor.

Evans was Washington's right-hand man in the council, and he's a capable public official. But there's something phony about him, and he doesn't have Washington's warmth. He's trying to capitalize on the dead mayor's popularity by calling his newly formed party the "Harold Washington Party," but that's a turn-off for many people who wonder if the guy has an original thought of his own.

Daley, long scorned as no more than a puppet of his father, has earned respect in eight years as state's attorney. He's still a poor public speaker, which tends to raise questions in people's minds about his intelligence. But he has run a tight ship, and even liberal leaders who were staunch foes of his father are supporting him.

Daley has the vast bulk of the white ethnic community in his pocket, while most blacks will vote for Sawyer in the primary and for Evans in the general election. The key areas will be the liberal north lakefront and the Hispanic community, where neither black has made inroads.

It was in these areas that Washington defeated Byrne in '87. And it's these people who will give Chicago another Mayor Daley April 4.

EdMcManus is an assistant financial editor for the Chicago Tribune

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