>>>In that case, I think he was just playing the game legally and it worked to his advantage. Basically, she decided to jump back in at the last minute. She waited too long and then didn't have time to go out and get enough signatures so she cheated (probably not her personally, it was probably her supporters who cheated). Not sure about the other candidates.
>>>
>>>
>>>Tracy,
>>>
>>>That may be so - but that had to be one of the few times in the history of Democrat Party machine politics in Chicago that anyone got concerned about legality and signature or voter fraud or simply screwing up with nominating petitions.
>>>
>>>Yes, Alice Palmer should have gotten more valid signatures than she did. Anyone outside of Chicago in Illinois would have known that Obama's hands are never clean, not the way he's pumping billions of dollars into ACORN right now. Even Bill Clinton has said that Obama has the political instincts of a Chicago thug.
>>
>>Even Bill Clinton? He still hasn't gotten over the Democratic nomination race last year. He was way more agitated over Hillary's race than over any of the many things that have been said about him. He's hardly an unbiased commentator on Barack Obama.
>>
>>Obama was never part of the Chicago machine. He didn't antagonize them or fight them but was smart enough not to get pulled down into the sewer along with them.
>
>What political machine? Haven't you heard? It hasn't existed since 1976:
>http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/11/obama_a_product_of_chicago_mac.html
>
>I guess no one told Blagojevich... :)

That blog spot has a point -- the Democratic machine is nowhere near what it was under the first Mayor Daley. But patronage and cronyism are still alive and well.

The other day I read that the average worker in the city's Streets and Sanitation department, a.k.a. Streets and Sani -- notorious for patronage jobs -- spends an average of two hours a day loafing. And that's not even counting the ones who hold other jobs and get paid without showing up.

One of my favorites on this topic was three or four years ago after the Taste of Chicago, an annual summer event in which dozens of restaurants set up booths near Grant Park for a couple of weeks leading up to the 4th of July. Attendance is in the millions every year. This particular year it came out that a no-bid contract to clean up afterward had been given out to a firm with connections to Mayor Daley (the new one). Questioned about it at a press conference, Da Mare said in his high, squeaky voice, "But they did an excellent job cleaning up!" As if that was the point....