Daley the Elder’s campaigns were straight out of “The Last Hurrah”: torchlight parades, patronage armies, GOTV not TV. He improved on Pushcart Tony Cermak's model: an ethnically-diverse Machine is a winner. Both Daleys had Polish-American City Clerks: John Marcin (who served 24 years), then Walter Kozubowski & Jim Laski (who both served a few years of their own, heh.) Chicago City Treasurer Joe Bertrand was the first African-American elected to citywide office.

“The Chicago Way became the Illinois Way,” said Jim Merriner. How better to explain the impact of Chicago politics - Machine v. Goo-Goos - on the Illinois Body Politic. Growing up a son and grandson of suburban GOP pols, this author’s scorn for Daley the Elder was in-bred. In the ‘60s, as one of those scruffy antiwar protestors, I disliked him for different reasons. Later, as a progressive activist, that distaste extended to Daley the Younger. Still, the influence of these two guys, their clan and their orbiting moons cannot be denied.

(Daley '75 & Parky Cullerton courtesy of Busy Beaver Museum.

Hinky Clerk of the Circuit Court Matt Danaher was a Daley go-fer who died just before going to trial for $400,000 in kickbacks. Morgan Finley - another hinky Clerk of the Court - went to jail for racketeering in Operation Incubator, but kept his $2 million City pension.

Mike Bilandic: the first Machine Mayor to lose in the modern era. All politics is local...shovel the snow!

Tenemos amigos

Martwick for School Super…cool button!

Daley the Younger relied less on Ward Bosses for street muscle and more on rented strangers, key Ward organizations and roving bands of patronage mercenaries such as HDO. Big $$$. More TV than GOTV.

Daley the Younger’s orbiting moons

- Claude Walker. Bicentennial-by-Buttons: 200 Years of Trailblazers, Rascals and Felons