By Matthew Pinna -
Three days ago, Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass exposed the Chicago Democratic Machine in all of its rusted glory—or, rather, its lack thereof.
David Krupa, a freshman at DePaul University and conservative aldermanic candidate for Mike Madigan’s 13th Ward, was stunned when the Chicago Board of Elections received over 2,700 signed and notarized affidavits from individuals that renounced their signatures on his petitions. Apparently, “an organized crew of political workers” underwent the painstaking process of going “door to door” across the ward with these legal documents, amassing a massive amount of revocations, the likes of which had been “never seen” before by officials.
“The board has received a few revocations here and there in very rare electoral board cases over the years,” said election board spokesman Jim Allen. “They're pretty rare, and no one can remember anything approaching this volume of filings in past cases.”
The only problem, however—aside from the gang of likely government-bankrolled goons going around, of course—was that Krupa had only collected 1,703 signatures. On top of this, a mere 187 of the 2,796 actually matched—2,609 people, either intentionally or by accident, had lied.
Kass ends his piece with an accompanying tone of resignation, pointing out the fact that it is unlikely that any of the equally-corrupted checks in place—Cook County State Attorney Kim Foxx and incoming Attorney General Kwame Raoul—will end up doing the jobs they were elected to do. After all, he writes, “this is Chicago where the Davids get crushed by the Goliaths. And where the boss is the boss.”
I, however, see this situation a bit differently. Political machines—regardless of where they may be—rely on every cog and gear in their engine to run as smoothly as possible. If this can’t be achieved, which is most certainly the case of the Chicago machine, it has to have the appearance of running smoothly, primarily done through providing distracting services that its constituents want; the machine quite literally has to give the people only “the bells and whistles,” hoping that they jingle and sound loud enough to keep voters’ eyes off of the disaster before them.
Inevitably, the people begin to tire of the showy and gilded frills that are given to them in place of substance, slowly but surely rejecting the influence of a machine that has long taken their continued support for granted. This appears to be the natural progression of boss-led machines; as the charismatic political monolith begin to fade away, the system is forced to cope with the reality of its inefficiencies, ones that had long relied on the massive shadow of their popular leader to hide behind.
Although still undeniably strong, the Madigan Machine has taken its fair share of hits from both sides of the aisle, and the damage is beginning to show. Despite being deeply unsuccessful in his re-election attempt, former Governor Bruce Rauner’s Madigan-focused election message forced Governor-elect J.B. Pritzker to hedge at his close relationship with the Speaker. On the left, Congressman-elect Jesus “Chuy” Garcia has led a contingent of vocal anti-Chicago establishment, Latino progressives to victory, running primarily on a sense of “disenfranchisement” that was felt by the districts they won in. Just taking a look at the candidate spread for the Chicago mayoral election further evidences this split—aside from Preckwinkle (Chair of Cook County Democrats) and Daley (need I explain?), the other 19 candidates are gunning for the machine.
What does all of this mean? Simply that every shot against the machine counts, and helps to weaken its necessary appearance of remaining unfazed. While the mistake made against Candidate David Krupa is relatively small in terms of the number of people involved, it is one of the more blatant recent examples of machine-rust and this weakness should be taken advantage of.
It doesn’t mean give up, but rather force the Democrats to make a risky choice: either attempt to challenge or revoke signatures and embarrass themselves once more on a state-wide platform, or let candidates through and risk them winning over voters that have long felt forgotten by the establishment.
Following the deep losses of this most recent election, Illinois’ Conservatives have work to do, and just like with Krupa, these efforts start at the most local of districts. Build a powerful message and prove that you can follow up on what you said—then, those many voters that are looking for a home will find their place in the way that’s right.
