Chicago-style Deep Shit

Primaries were yesterday, and Chicago is trying to fuse two elections systems (touch-screen and paper/scan ballots), and what a motherfucking fiasco. The city, which prides itself on having election returns counted by 8 pm (or one hour after the polls close), for some reason couldn’t count the ballots in a few key races last night. Let’s speculate as to why, shall we?

What’s the real result of an election screwup like Chicago had yesterday? How about an election for Cook County Board President, overseeing 30,000 county employees and a 4 BILLION DOLLAR budget every year, that has gone to a manual recount today?

The candidates, machine puppet John Stroger (who is black) and Forrest Claypool, something of an independent Democrat (who is white), could not be more different. Mayor Daley, the unions, Governor Blagojevich, and the Cook County machine all supported Stroger, the 20-year incumbent. Nobody supported Claypool.

The kicker is that Stroger had a major stroke about a month ago and is, by unofficial accounts, almost dead. The official word is that he’s stable, alert, carving soapstone jewelry, and bench-pressing 900 pounds. In other words, he’s probably already dead and the machine just needs to keep up the charade until after the primary, when Daley will appoint another puppet to fill the position.

All night last night, this was the one race that stood out. Not just because Claypool was winning for most of the night, but because so few ballots had actually been counted. Cook County and the City of Chicago have separate election boards (though both are run by Daley stooges). By midnight, the county had tallied about 60% of its ballots, but the city had only reported about 35%. Now, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Cook County—the suburbs—will vote for the white candidate and the city will vote for the black candidate. Lest you think I am being a racist shit, that’s exactly what Stroger’s campaign said on television at 11 pm last night: ballots from Chicago had not been accounted for, thus disenfranchising black voters and robbing John Stroger, the house Negro of the Daley machine, of his chance to lick Dick’s boots for the next 4 years.

In the angry press conference at which this allegation was made, Stroger’s people also accused Claypool’s campaign of having something to do with this affair, though they wouldn’t elaborate. They all then fled the hotel where they were gathered for a victory party and went to the Board of Elections, where they huddled with Langdon Neal, the Chicago Board guy, and David Orr, the Cook County Board guy, and discussed what to do. I shit you not. This was on camera and commented on by local news anchors, who covered the election clusterfuck all night last night, live.

Now, it could be me, but isn’t it transparently ridiculous when the machine-backed candidate accuses "the man" of trying to derail his campaign? As one reporter scoffed last night, "Elections have been stolen every year for the last 100 years in Chicago. Is Stroger serious about this? Isn’t he part of the problem? He was elected, originally, by one of Daley’s "hundred man armies" (gangs of men, usually city workers on the clock, who travel the city and vote repeatedly as well as getting out the vote) that are now being investigated, and we all know that."

Stroger’s people were at the Board of Elections talking lawsuit this and malfeasance that, and getting in the faces of Neal and Orr, but it was all for show. These guys play golf together every week. They married each other’s sisters. This ain’t no thing, as they say on da streets.

Claypool, for his part, didn’t know what the fuck to do. In the space of four hours he went from building a solid lead over a corrupt incumbent (who is probably brain dead, but my condolences, shitbag; you work for the machine, you suck my balls), to being accused of election tampering, to being sued for everything up to and including causing Stroger’s capillary hemorrhage.

The heads of the Boards of Elections took pains to assure reporters that all ballots were accounted for and that all votes had been recorded. Just not, uh, counted. Because…well, just because, OK? Seriously, that was the response. Anyway, just as they were giving these assurances that they had all the votes, a wily cameraman for ABC 7 News took video of trucks pulling up outside and workers unloading box upon box of new, heretofore unseen ballots. So much for trusting the system.

Does it make sense that white people in Chicago pulled shenanigans and collected black votes from the South Side, put them into their cars, and then took them away somewhere, in an attempt to throw the election to Claypool? Would Daley sell out his own vegetable that way?

Or does it make more sense that this whole disenfranchisement thing is just a thin smokescreen to distract from the fact that Stroger’s people saw how badly they lost in the suburbs and needed more time to fix the South Side ballots? That one, the simple explanation that points to the machine’s influence and the endemic corruption of city politics, is the best answer.

Never say the Democrats didn’t learn anything from Bush in 2000. They dragged this thing out way past midnight, forcing the city to eventually suspend vote counting at 2 am, and more votes will doubtless "appear" today when the count resumes at 1 pm (WHY so late? Several reporters asked, Langdon Neal never answered).

And wouldn’t you know it: after midnight, when most people went to bed, a large batch of South Side votes magically appeared downtown and swung the tally for Stroger. As of now, at 2:15 pm in Chicago, Stroger holds a 53-47 lead on Claypool with 89% of precincts counted. Uh huh. Suuuuuuure.

It is interesting that almost every race except this one had a declared winner last night, isn’t it? Somehow, Bobby Rush and Rahm Emanuel got re-nominated without anyone ever seeing most of the South Side’s ballots. Somehow candidates to the Illinois legislature were elected without anyone seeing the South Side ballots. Somehow judges, bond issues, and tax increases were voted upon and decided, apparently in the absence of the majority of the South Side’s ballots. In the hours of TV coverage of this fucking embarrassment, not one person asked how that was possible.

It’s just business as usual in this town. We all work for the machine everyday by our complacency. Shame on the Democrats, shame on blacks on the South Side, so desperate for a representative in County government that they’ll vote for any piece of filth Daley shoves at them; shame on us all.