Farewell, Richie

(...from Yanqui Mike coverage of the 2008 Democratic Convention in Denver where I served as the Official Blogger for Democrats Abroad after having been selected by then DNC Chair Howard Dean.  The above video is part of 100 of my videos which were subsequently selected by the US Library of Congress as part of its permanent collection of materials pertaining to Election 2008.)

My missus, the lovely and talented 99, and I were just discussing tonight la crisis economica back in the old country.  President Obama´s recently announced 50 billion public works project, real estate, a generation of yanquilandia´s best and brightest drowning under student loans, US unemployment, the state of California, the wars in Iraq and Afganistan, etc.

"How is Chicago doing?", she asked.  I explained how, in past recessions, Chicago was one of the best cities to live and work ...due to the very broad-based industries there, the Windy City generally has weathered storms better than most.  So much so that some recessions never really affected it.

This time it´s different.  So much of the industrial might of the US has been off-shored that, this time around, Chicago is suffering like everywhere else.

I blurted out a prediction that Mayor Daley won´t run for re-election.  Sure enough, upon getting back home, I saw that the announcement had been made.

There´s so much to say about my favorite Democrat.  Like very many Chicagoans, I´ve had lots of disagreements with Hizzoner ...but like the great majority of the citizens of that city, we always knew that "the man on five" had our backs.  There´s no doubt, in my mind, that he could have won another term in office.

His father, Richard J. Daley, the American Phaeroh, was mayor for &000000000000002100000021 years, &0000000000000244000000244 days, from April 20, 1955 until he dropped dead in his doctor´s examination room on December 20, 1976.  "Richie", as the current mayor is known, will tie his father on December 25, 2010 if inauguration day doesn´t come first ...I¨m not sure anymore when that occurs.

My old buddy, Milo Tilton, once explained to me how it felt to have a mayor serve for so long, "Michael, when I was born Daley was mayor; when I went away to college he was mayor; when I lived in Montana he was mayor ...and when I moved back to Chicago, he was STILL mayor!"

The current mayor isn´t much like his father in mayoral style.  Truth be told, he is heir to perhaps Chicago´s finest mayor, Harold Washington, who I had the pleasure of meeting one day at his favorite boliche, The Red Lion on Clark Street.

But Richie inherited a lot of the old man´s bizzare verbal style and lack of inhibition in public speaking.  Just recently, after the US Supreme Court struck down Chicago´s decades old ban on owning firearms, "da mare" was asked by a reporter just how effective it ever really was.

Richard M. Daley reached for a pistol from the news conference display and replied, "If I put this up your butt, you'll find out how effective it is."

Ay! Que Chicago!