Todd Stroger

As of now he will be the outgoing county board President. Tuesday night he lost the Democratic nomination for aforementioned position to Ald. Toni Preckwinkle.

Knowing what I know about Cook County politics, what I know is that the Republicans basically are non-existent and the Democrat is often a virtual shoo-in. Of course a Republican last held this office how long ago, 40 years ago? And that man also became a Governor of Illinois.

All the same I wrote this piece over at Mechanics bouncing off of comments written by Rich Miller regarding Stroger:

Can I just say that if I was to ever write a novel, I would write one based on the story of the Stroger family. Both father and son.

The father will be portrayed as a great man, although I know there are many who may not have cared for him as Cook County board president. Then I write about the son with the idea that sometimes greatness can skip a generation.

Heh, I think that was harsh, but not off base. Of course not that I would take those comments back I won't! Greatness may well have skipped a generation.

Todd Stroger's home turf is the 8th Ward. In fact the offices of Stroger's 8th Ward Democratic organization is on Cottage Grove, right across the street is Chicago's 6th Ward (for more about that place read The Sixth Ward). :P

Anyway let's go forward to WLS-TV political reporter Charles Thomas on what Todd Stroger's electoral defeat means!

Stroger will remain Cook County Board President for another nine months as a "lame duck". He'll have administrative power at the county building...but when it comes to political clout, you may as well stick a fork in him. He's done.

And he should watch his back.

His cut-throat buddies at the democratic central committee need a strongman (or woman) in the 8th Ward.

Right now, they've got a weakling in charge.

Hmmm, I should mention that in Stroger's 8th Ward, he may have recieved a plurality of vote but the numbers are pathetic! The 8th is said to have a high turnout of black voters and it an important base for Mayor Daley. On top of that Daley and the Stroger family is said to be tight.

John Stroger was a machine Democrat. When Mayor Richard M. Daley ran for Mayor in 1983, instead of going with many blacks and support Harold Washington, Stroger instead went for Daley. Needless to say Washington became Mayor of Chicago, but ultimately that job would become Daley's in roughly two years after Washington's untimely death!

BTW, John Stroger was the nominee in 2006 to retain his county board President's seat. That was even after a stroke, people turned out for him. Sympathy votes if you well, very unfortunate because it became more and more clear that John Stroger may never recover. Eventually an acting County Board President was named and Todd Stroger became the new Democratic nominee. Can anyone say nepotism?

A lot of people justified the maneuvering by saying that it has always been done by whites. People justified this by referring to Mayor Daley (his father served as Mayor also until his death in 1976) or even Lisa Madigan (who serves as our state's attorney general) but the difference is that they were elected on their own. In this case the more comparable similirity may be Bill Lipinski's sudden retirement and the anointing of his son to eventually succeed him in the Congressional seat.

Now one can only wonder if allowing Todd the opportunity to take his father's place on the ballot in 2006 and eventually to be county board president was worth it!