Seriously, sometimes this place makes me wonder if I'm living in the US or possibly a little transplanted chunk of North Korea.
More than three months after suffering a serious stroke -- and winning renomination in spite of it -- Cook County Board President John Stroger is expected to withdraw this week and ask Democratic ward bosses to replace him on the November ticket with his son. Ald. William Beavers (7th), self-declared spokesman for the Stroger family, has already started lining up votes for Ald. Todd Stroger (8th) and appears to be well on his way to securing a majority of the weighted votes of 80 ward and township committeemen to place the younger Stroger on the ballot, sources said.
The complex political deal calls for Beavers, powerful chairman of the City Council's Budget Committee, to replace John Stroger as county commissioner and for Todd Stroger to replace his father as president of the board, where he would have no vote. Until the election, John Stroger would remain in office. If Beavers wins the seat, he would resign as 7th Ward alderman on the condition that Mayor Daley appoint his daughter to replace him....
So in one case we have the son replacing the father, in another the daughter replacing the father, and in neither case do We The People have anything whatsoever to say about it. To be sure, given the roles the children of these men have been playing for a while, I'm sure they're comparatively capable people. And granted, they're more or less interim appointments -- although the weight of incumbency, to the extent that they'll have it, may help them to win election eventually.
But still, it somehow feels like watching royals squabble over who gets the various minor titles.
Posted by iain at June 28, 2006 11:09 AM
