Word: chicago
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Chicago, April 4 -- On the 21st anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Richard M. Daley was elected mayor after a campaign that sundered the city along racial lines...
...badly phrased as this is, in Daley's inimitable style (his most famous malaprop occured during the 1968 Democratic primary, at which Chicago police forcefully attacked student demonstrators, when he said, "The police are not here to create disorder. The police are here to preserve disorder."), this is not a quaint piece of folksy, Midwestern wisdom; this is the heartbeat of politics...
...enough votes to win, even if he had to buy them or stuff the ballot box. Mayor Washington won his amazing upset in 1983 because the white community was divided, and the Black community--unified around the cause of getting a Black mayor for the first time in Chicago's history--made sure he had enough of their votes...
...Mayor Daley deserved to win because he made sure that he would have enough votes to win from the outset, and he ran a smart, fair campaign. In Chicago, since everyone is a Democrat, political lines must be drawn on different factors. Race is a particularly useful factor for lining up allegiances, since the Black community no longer trusts the white politicians who have abused them for years, and the white community is afraid that Black politicians will allow their city to fall into ruin...
...years to convince the city's Black community that he does have qualifications beside the fact that he was Washington's heir apparent. But it may be too late. Barring a complete Daley disaster or enormous change in the voting and registration habits of Chicago's Black populace, Daleys have a nasty habit of staying in office...