I'm not sure how long it
will last, but black voters in Cook County are united and fired up right now
like they haven't been in a long time.
It goes back to Barack
Obama's 2004 Democratic primary victory, but it flamed back up in January, when
Chicago's historic Pilgrim Baptist Church burned down. Black people from all
over the city and county gathered in huge numbers to grieve with the
parishioners and pledge their support. Governor Rod Blagojevich stepped up with
a million dollars in rebuilding money and was roundly cheered.
The recent conflagration
over the governor's hate crimes commission sparked a hue and cry among the
black community, many of whose members perceived the attacks on a Louis
Farrakhan adviser appointed to the committee as an attack on black people in
general. Black talk radio was flooded for days with defiant, angry calls and
Gov. Blagojevich's stock went up again when he refused to remove the
controversial commissioner, even at the expense of disgruntlement within the
Jewish community.
And then Cook County Board
President John Stroger, an African-American, had a stroke and everything seemed
to fall into place. Shock was followed by grief, followed by red-hot anger when
Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg implied that Stroger was faking his stroke
to score sympathy votes. Once again, the control boards at black radio stations
were flooded with angry phone calls.
The result was that John
Stroger won last Tuesday's primary against reformer Forrest Claypool. Stroger
was literally carried across the finish line by big numbers in predominantly
black wards. The win was also a victory for Gov. Blagojevich, who wanted
Stroger on the ballot for the fall campaign to help increase black turnout,
which for obvious reasons he deems crucial to his re-election.
But state Sen. James Meeks
may have other ideas. Meeks (D-Chicago) reminded reporters last week that he
may still be a factor in the fall festivities. "On March 28, I can start
putting petitions on the street" for a third-party gubernatorial bid,
Meeks told the Sun-Times. "And, so far, I've had nothing to deter me from
putting petitions on the street on March 28." Meeks said the governor has
never called black leaders together and asked them what they want. If
Blagojevich doesn't do that very soon, Meeks said, he'll run.
History never exactly
repeats itself, but events are starting to remind me of 1982, when the
Democratic Party machine registered huge numbers of African-Americans to vote
and then cranked up the returns for Adlai Stevenson's gubernatorial bid with a
massive "Punch 10" straight-voting campaign. That effort led directly
to Harold Washington's stunning Chicago mayoral victory the following spring.
I'm not saying that James
Meeks will turn out to be another Harold Washington, or even that he'll run. A
statewide campaign is a lot different than a Chicago race.
But what I have been
saying for at least two years now is something that's become so obvious perhaps
the media at large will finally catch on: Black political influence is way on
the rise in Cook County and in Illinois.
Gov. Blagojevich has been
smart to try to encourage and tap into this phenomenon, but if Meeks defies
conventional wisdom and runs, the governor, like Eddie Vrdolyak's machine
before him, will have helped manufacture his own political demise.
Even if Meeks doesn't run,
Mayor Daley and the white-dominated party machine need to watch their backs in
a major way. If Daley, like Blagojevich, thinks that supporting John Stroger
will inoculate himself against an assault from a credible African-American
opponent like Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., he's wrong.
Forrest Claypool probably
endorsed more black candidates for higher office than John Stroger, and look
where that got him. And even though Jackson favored Claypool, that probably
won't hurt him in a mayoral bid. After all, John Stroger endorsed Dan Hynes against
Barack Obama and backed Rich Daley against Harold Washington.
Frankly, I'm not exactly
sure where all of this is heading. It may end up being a movement without
specific direction. Tuesday's election split the black vote and the white
liberal vote, which was so important to Harold Washington's two campaigns. But,
alliances can change on a dime in Chicago politics. What this election showed
is that a strong black politician who teams up with a formidable voting bloc
(in this case, the regular machine) can win almost no matter what. Make no
mistake, this is a real movement.
-30-
Rich Miller also publishes
Capitol Fax, a daily political newsletter. He can be reached at
thecapitolfaxblog.com