Election 2008 - Bring Out Your Dead

With the Presidential Election just 10 days away, a composite of 10 major Polls shows that Senator Obama is leading Senator McCain by 7.5%

In 1984 Chicago Newspaper columnist Mike Royko suggested that people should lie to the media about who they voted for in television sponsored exit polls. There was sound reasoning behind Royko’s promoting this activity. The television media was calling a candidate a winner before the polls closed. This prevented people who would normally vote, to not vote. Either their preferred candidate was declared a winner or was out of contention; so why bother to vote?

Long before Mike Royko, lying to pollsters was advocated by King Richard I (Richard J Daley – Mayor of Chicago for Life) in the 1960’s. Of course, he didn’t put it in writing or say it to the media. Daley instead passed the word down to the Democratic Aldermen and Precinct Captains. But King Richard I took it one step further; you were advised to also lie in any pre-election polls. This was part of the Daley Machine’s Political strategy.

The Chicago voter turnout has always been far above the National average. It has been purported, but not proven, that even terminally ill registered voters and recently deceased voters (as long as they were registered Democrats) have voted in past elections.

King Richard I also strongly suggested who you should vote for in the elections. As a general rule it was a straight Democratic Party ticket. You would get a hand delivered sample ballot from your precinct Captain or one of his minions. They would then place an X next to the preferred candidate’s name.

In 1968, the first presidential election in which I was allow to vote (the law was 21 years old or older at that time), there was no X next to any of the presidential candidate’s name. However there was an X next to Republican Senator Everett Dirksen’s (from down State Illinois) name as well as Republican Gubernatorial candidate Richard Ogilvie’s (the Cook County Sheriff) name.

Although he publicly endorsed Hubert H. Humphrey as well as all the Democratic Party candidates, King Richard I let his people know who he preferred in the 1968 election. Nixon won Illinois because Daley did not particularly like Humphrey. Dirksen would have probably won without Daley’s support, just by a smaller margin. And Ogilvie became the Governor of Illinois due to Daley’s surreptitious support.

I knew a Black Baptist Minister whose Church was in the Woodlawn neighborhood of Chicago. He was also a Democratic Precinct Captain in his ward. He fervently disliked King Richard I, and told me that he was the most bigoted man that he had ever met. I queried as to why he worked for him. His answer was that “he was good for the City and that regardless of his prejudice he took care of the people in Woodlawn.”

Now there is King Richard II (Richard M. Daley – the current Mare of Chicago). He’s a couple years older than I am. He was raised by a bigoted father and grew up in the Irish Catholic neighborhood of Bridgeport. As I had been, he was taught that Black people were to be tolerated, but not respected or trusted.

Has King Richard II learned to put aside his childhood training, values and beliefs? I doubt it! The apple does not fall far from the tree.

If the new Daley Machine works like the old Daley Machine; you will see many white Democrat voters in Chicago voting for John McCain. But they’ll be telling the Pollsters that they are supporting Obama.

In the polls, Illinois is listed as an Obama state, but it also was listed as a Humphrey state in 1968.

The Beach Bum