Chicago Politics - A Primer

Democracy For Utah has a post up today that needs to be addressed but since they don't allow comments, I have to comment here.

NPR:

Regardless of his background, it was never a problem for anyone — including Republicans and Chicago's most powerful business leaders — to work with Ayers on Chicago's public schools. In fact, Ayers is widely respected in the field of urban education.

"It was never a concern by any of us in the Chicago school reform movement that he had led a fugitive life years earlier," said former Illinois state Republican Rep. Diana Nelson, who worked with both Obama and Ayers over the years. [...]

"I don't remember ever hearing anyone raise concerns or questions or concerns about [Ayers'] background," says Anne Hallett, who has worked closely with Ayers on the Annenberg Challenge grant and with Obama on education and other community and legislative matters. "And that included everybody I was engaged with," including prominent Republicans and corporate and civic leaders in Chicago, Hallett adds.

Why do Chicago Republicans hate America?

Unless you have grown up with Chicago politics (which I have) it is a hard duck to fully understand. You don't fully appreciate how much a political "machine" has over every day life if you have never had to work with one. Chicago has the mother of all political machines and it is and has been run for over 60 years by one family - the Daley family. Now Mayor Richard M. (Ritchie) Daley is not the hard core progressive that the majority of Democrats today are. He is the last of the Scoop Jackson/JFK/Richard J. Daley Democratic Party. Because of that, the Progressives and the Republicans all have to put aside a lot, if they ever want to get something done in the City of Chicago. Once Bill Ayers got the Richard M. Daley stamp of approval, the local Republicans had no choice but to work with him in order to get things done. That is what happens when you control a city as thoroughly as the Daley family does.

It is not too far afield, I will admit, from the hold that the LDS Church has on politics in Utah. If you are a Democrat in Utah, you can not toe the Progressive Party line if you ever want to stand a CHANCE of getting anything done in this state. So you compromise quietly on things that can be compromised on so that you can get the really important (to you) things through.

The difference between former state Rep. Nelson and Senator Obama is that Rep. Nelson is NOT applying to run the US Military in the global war on terror where Senator Obama is. Rep. Nelson also admits that Bill Ayers is more than just "some guy from the neighborhood" where Senator Obama has not. These kinds of associations in a state legislator are local politics....in a national leader they can be deadly (politically). It is not a matter of "hating America" as it is a matter of judgment - something that the President of the United States of America needs on a daily basis. There will be times when the only thing between the US and war IS the President's judgment. So I think it is more than fair for the voters in the US to know exactly what kind of judgment Senator Barack Obama has. Don't you?