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Now, I know we media people have our faults, but you can hardly blame the press for creating the perception that Jesse Jackson Jr. has been critical of Mayor Daley. While openly toying with running against him for the last year, Jackson’s routinely ripped the mayor for everything from the demolition of Meigs Field to cost overruns at Millennium Park. (Let’s not even get into Peotone.) Even when Jackson announced this fall that he wouldn’t run against Daley, he larded his speech with attacks on the mayor.
Why the change of tune? Again, Sandi Jackson’s running for alderman. And it appears that not even the wife of one of the mayor’s most vociferous opponents dares to run as an anti-Daley candidate. Generally aldermanic candidates either endorse Daley or endorse no one. It’s a variation on the tactic employed by Cook County commissioner Tony Peraica in his race against Todd Stroger for president of the county board. Peraica rarely criticized Daley or his brother, commissioner John Daley, because he didn’t want to alienate the legions of Daley cultists who apparently believe the mayor is responsible for all that’s right about Chicago. In effect even candidates running as reformers pretend that the man in charge during years of scandals and rising taxes does not exist.
