If you've somehow made it to this page, you almost certainly know where the Fourth Ward is. You may not know its exact boundaries, however.
The Fourth Ward includes all of the Kenwood and Oakland neighborhoods, the northern portion of Hyde Park and the eastern portions of the Washington Park, Grand Boulevard and Douglas neighborhoods. Its boundaries, which are jagged (reflecting decades of gerrymandering and political compromise) extend as far South as 55th Street and as far north as 26th. The City of Chicago's map of the Ward is located here.
I'm interested in the history of the changes of the ward that have resulted from redistricting over the years. If you have a set of digitized historical boundaries, please let me know.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
With Friends Like These (Preckwinkle on Obama)
Our Alderman’s comments in the July 21, 2008 New Yorker story by Ryan Lizza deserve more attention than they have received. The article provides a fascinating outsider’s review of politics on the South Side of Chicago. It has, unfortunately, been overshadowed by the now-famous caricature on the cover of the magazine.
The article gives almost as much insight into Toni Preckwinkle as Barack Obama. Reading between the lines, Preckwinkle’s animosity towards Obama (for whom she is going to be a delegate at the Democratic National Convention) seems driven primarily by Obama’s failure to give Preckwinkle what she considers her due as one of his early political supporters and perhaps by some jealously as well.
The tone of the article is set from the start with an interview of Preckwinkle, who is portrayed (perhaps somewhat credulously) as an early Obama stalwart. Preckwinkle is “an indispensable witness—a close observer, friend, and confidante during a period of Obama’s life to which he rarely calls attention.”
So, somewhat breathlessly, Lizza reports that “it was startling to learn that Toni Preckwinkle had become disenchanted with Barack Obama.”
Preckwinkle seems to fault Obama for his rapid success:
Yet the logic of her charge is week. Obama’s meteoric rise is, of course, exceptional, but it does not, itself detract from whatever he did or did not do in public office. If Preckwinkle feels that Obama’s record as a State Senator was undistinguished, then she should justify why she supported him first (unsuccessfully) for Bobby Rush’s Congressional seat and then for the vacant Senate seat that propelled him to his current position.
Ironically (given that she is now publicly trashing him), Preckwinkle’s view of Obama seems to stem more from a perceived lack of “loyalty” than any lack of principles. An example provided in the article was Obama’s refusal to endorse a former Preckwinkle aid and longtime friend Will Burns in a state senate primary.
Most "startling" to me is Preckwinkle’s attempt to tar Obama with his relationship with Tony Rezko. Although Rezko was an early supporter of Obama’s, the relationship pales by comparison with the Rezko-Preckwinkle relationship. Rezko was the head of Preckwinkle’s campaign finance committee for years. And she personally approved six of the troubled housing projects that Rezko built in her ward. Obama, in contrast, has no record of giving political favors to Rezko.
Contrary to Preckwinkle’s intimations, Obama it appears was an effective community organizer in voter registration drives in Chicago. If this effort also helped him build a network, no one disputes that the voter registration drive was a success, due in no small part to Obama’s efforts.
The article also shows him using all the legitimate tools at his disposal to win his state senate seat, even if that meant stepping on some toes in the so-called “progressive” political establishment by, for example, knocking Alice Palmer (the African-American incumbent who had initially declined to run) off of the primary ballot by challenging the signatures on her petition.
Beyond Preckwinkle and Obama, the New Yorker article is a great read on the realties of Chicago Politics. One of my favorites is something of an old chestnut, told here by Ab Mikvah:
The article gives almost as much insight into Toni Preckwinkle as Barack Obama. Reading between the lines, Preckwinkle’s animosity towards Obama (for whom she is going to be a delegate at the Democratic National Convention) seems driven primarily by Obama’s failure to give Preckwinkle what she considers her due as one of his early political supporters and perhaps by some jealously as well.
The tone of the article is set from the start with an interview of Preckwinkle, who is portrayed (perhaps somewhat credulously) as an early Obama stalwart. Preckwinkle is “an indispensable witness—a close observer, friend, and confidante during a period of Obama’s life to which he rarely calls attention.”
So, somewhat breathlessly, Lizza reports that “it was startling to learn that Toni Preckwinkle had become disenchanted with Barack Obama.”
Preckwinkle seems to fault Obama for his rapid success:
Although many of Obama’s recent supporters have been surprised by signs of political opportunism, Preckwinkle wasn’t. “I think he was very strategic in his choice of friends and mentors,” she told me. “I spent ten years of my adult life working to be alderman. I finally got elected. This is a job I love. And I’m perfectly happy with it. I’m not sure that’s the way that he approached his public life—that he was going to try for a job and stay there for one period of time. In retrospect, I think he saw the positions he held as stepping stones to other things and therefore approached his public life differently than other people might have.”Preckwinkle’s suggestion here is not just that Obama is ambitious (of course he is), but that he is driven only by ambition, with no real intention of using the political power he achieves to promote any particular cause.
Yet the logic of her charge is week. Obama’s meteoric rise is, of course, exceptional, but it does not, itself detract from whatever he did or did not do in public office. If Preckwinkle feels that Obama’s record as a State Senator was undistinguished, then she should justify why she supported him first (unsuccessfully) for Bobby Rush’s Congressional seat and then for the vacant Senate seat that propelled him to his current position.
Ironically (given that she is now publicly trashing him), Preckwinkle’s view of Obama seems to stem more from a perceived lack of “loyalty” than any lack of principles. An example provided in the article was Obama’s refusal to endorse a former Preckwinkle aid and longtime friend Will Burns in a state senate primary.
Most "startling" to me is Preckwinkle’s attempt to tar Obama with his relationship with Tony Rezko. Although Rezko was an early supporter of Obama’s, the relationship pales by comparison with the Rezko-Preckwinkle relationship. Rezko was the head of Preckwinkle’s campaign finance committee for years. And she personally approved six of the troubled housing projects that Rezko built in her ward. Obama, in contrast, has no record of giving political favors to Rezko.
Contrary to Preckwinkle’s intimations, Obama it appears was an effective community organizer in voter registration drives in Chicago. If this effort also helped him build a network, no one disputes that the voter registration drive was a success, due in no small part to Obama’s efforts.
The article also shows him using all the legitimate tools at his disposal to win his state senate seat, even if that meant stepping on some toes in the so-called “progressive” political establishment by, for example, knocking Alice Palmer (the African-American incumbent who had initially declined to run) off of the primary ballot by challenging the signatures on her petition.
“He had created some enemies,” Emil Jones, who in 2003 became president of the Illinois Senate, said. Burns described the fallout of the Obama-Palmer race this way: “It established a reputation that ‘you’re not going to punk me, you’re not going to roll me over, you’re not going to jam me.’ I think it established him as a threat. You have his independence with Project Vote, you have his refusal to knuckle under during the Alice Palmer thing, and so now you have a series of data points that have some established leaders in the black community feeling disrespected.”Jones suggests that the resulting animosity played a significant role in Obama’s defeat by Bobby Rush in the race for the 1st Congressional District. More likely though, the defeat was the result of Rush’s strong fundraising machine built up during his unsuccessful campaign for mayor and (as Lizza points out) Rush’s greater appeal to the constituents of a majority black and poor district.
Beyond Preckwinkle and Obama, the New Yorker article is a great read on the realties of Chicago Politics. One of my favorites is something of an old chestnut, told here by Ab Mikvah:
“When I first came to Chicago, Adlai Stevenson and Paul Douglas were running for governor and senator,” he said. “I had heard about the closed Party, closed machine, but they sounded like such great candidates, so I stopped in to volunteer in the Eighth Ward Regular Democratic headquarters. I said, ‘I’m here for Douglas and Stevenson.’ The ward boss came in and pulled the cigar out of his mouth and said, ‘Who sent you?’ And I said, ‘Nobody sent me.’ He put the cigar back in his mouth and said, ‘We don’t want nobody nobody sent.’ ”The entire article can be found at http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/21/080721fa_fact_lizza.
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