For as long as I can remember, every political thinker from Milton Rakove to Mike Royko divided Chicago politics into two main factions: independents and regulars. Independents being the handful of elected officials who were unafraid to stand up to the boss—usually a powerful mayor—and the regulars being the loyal troops in the boss’s army.
The Machine—as created by the old bosses such as Mayor Richard J. Daley—is rooted in an alliance between Democratic Party and union powerhouses. On Election Day, this bunch was hard to beat, thanks to an army of patronage workers who had to get out the vote if they wanted to keep their jobs.
Corporate Democrats tend to be liberal on social issues—like marriage equality—and primordial on economic issues, like collective bargaining rights. Or making good on obligations to retirees. Or fairly divvying up the pie so the 1 percent doesn’t eat it all up. Or . . .
In that race, Madigan responded with such time-honored Machine tactics as putting dummy candidates on the ballot to confuse the anti-Madigan voters.
A similar coalition of progressives and regulars came together on the northwest side when Guzzardi and Ramirez-Rosa joined forces with party chairman Joe Berrios in a couple of legislative elections. In some ways, this was even more astounding than the Garcia-Madigan alliance, because progressives and Berrios have been fighting for years. Why, it was just two years ago that Logan Square progressives were practically turning over cars on Milwaukee Avenue in jubilation when Guzzardi ousted Toni Berrios—Papa Joe’s daughter.
Andrade racked up about 60 percent of the vote against Patel, running strong even in progressive Logan Square.
