The Obama White House has occasionally been refereed to as the 51st Ward, a fictitious (and evidently far flung) section of the Chicago political map. While this dubious honor probably was not meant to paint the White House as beholden to the political masters of Chicago, it does speak to the mentality and methodology of the largely Chicagoan staff and their political potentate of a president.
President Obama and William Daley
So the appointment of William Daley, scion of the legendary Daley Clan, Chicago’s preeminent power brokers and kingmakers, as President Obama’s Chief of Staff should have been a perfect fit. Obama and his people all cut their political teeth in Daley’s backyard and the addition of William to the team should have been the icing on the Democrat cake.
But it wasn’t.
Rumors now coming out of Washington are that Daley was disorganized and ineffective as a leader, unable to gain the respect of his underlings and inflexible in his wish to impose a hierarchy on those around him. So when Daley, fresh back from a holiday vacation, tended his resignation almost a full year before his previously announced retirement, the Obama camp was shocked – but they shouldn’t have been.
The reason this supposed match made in heaven failed so horribly is because the White House really IS the 51st Ward. Obama’s inner circle has learned the lessons of holding power, Chicago-style, remarkably well.
Political clout in Chicago was long ago crystallized around the Daleys. For 43 of the last 56 years a member of the Daley family was Mayor of Chicago. Patriarch Richard J. Daley (often referred to as The Boss) built his Machine, a model of patronage that rewarded loyalty to his family with political positions and lucrative contracts. The Machine (still alive and kicking) gave rise to a small, but impossibly tight-knit group of political players through which any deal needed to pass. There is no way to join this club; one has to be invited.
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Bill Daley took himself out of the game, remember? So your closing theory that there will be “repercussions” from the Daley camp toward Obama makes absolutely no sense. Bill Daley wanted out and he’s getting out.
Whether you like the Daleys or not, they are responsible for Chicago’s reputation as the “city that works.” You may not care for the way they make it work, but it works and at the end of the day, that’s all the people really want. They want the garbage picked up, the snow removed from the streets and the pot holes patched. How it gets done is less important to most people than the fact that it gets done.
So, you send Mr. Daley to Washington and suddenly he’s in charge of making things happen with Republicans who have made it their mission to see that nothing happens in the hope that the gridlock will be blamed on the president. Daley is not accustomed to that, so he took himself out and is coming back to Chicago where things get done. End of story.