By Steve Rhodes
Sorry folks, no Beachwood column today, I’ve got a lot of business to attend to. I’m planning to make a couple posts to Division Street later this morning, though. And, as always, there’s new material elsewhere on the site. ->>>
The [Tuesday] Papers
Fun with numbers, via a Tribune graphic on Sunday:
* The 21st Ward delivered the most votes for Obama: 30,059. Alderman: Howard Brookins.
* The 12th Ward delivered the least votes for Obama: 6,188. Alderman: George Cardenas.
* The 41st Ward delivered the most votes for McCain: 11,858. Alderman: Brian Doherty, the council’s lone Republican.
* The 17th Ward delivered the least votes for McCain: 95. Alderman: Latasha Thomas.
Yes, that’s right. Just 95 people in the 17th Ward voted for John McCain. Voting for Obama: 23,379.
* McCain didn’t win a single Chicago ward, which is unsurprising, but still interesting to note. He came closest in the 41st, of course (15,096 to 11,858 for Obama).
* McCain won the following Cook County Townships: Barrington, Lemont, and Orland.
* Thornton Township cast the most votes in Cook County for Obama: 67,406 (9,686 for McCain).
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“Having gone over the numbers several times, I still can’t get over the rock-solid support black Chicago gave President-elect Barack Obama in Tuesday’s elections,” Ben Joravsky writes. “The pollsters coming in to the election predicted Obama would win at least 90 percent of the black vote nationwide. But in Chicago it was over 99 percent – at least in the five wards that are almost 100 percent black. To be exact, he won 99.27 percent of the vote in the 6th Ward, 99.19 percent in the 8th, 99.24 percent in the 21st, 99.21 percent in the 24th, and 99.40 percent in the 34th.”
Boss Hogs
“You may think a Cook County commissioner is well paid at $85,000 dollars a year,” Dane Placko reports. “But now, Fox Chicago News reveals how some commissioners are giving themselves a back-door pay raise.”
This is the first of a two-part series; the conclusion is tonight.
Fox has also posted the expense reports of county commissioners; you can get there through the link above.
Memory Hole
The Sun-Times said in an editorial on Monday that “We worry about Mayor Daley’s memory.”
Maybe it ought to worry about its own.
The paper, reacting to the mayor’s convenient memory lapses when it comes to untoward business being conducted in his name, cautions that Daley “should remember one critical fact. If they get the brush-off too many times, voters don’t forget.”
Apparently, as pointed out in a letter to the editor today (second item), we haven’t reached “one too many times” yet after 19 years of Daley rule. And neither has the Sun-Times, which will undoubtedly continue endorsing Daley just as it has in the past.
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Who hired Angelo Torres?
Movie Mojo
The Tribune editorializes this morning in favor of extending the state’s film tax credit program. But as I wrote for NBCChicago last month, citing a New York Times story, the trend among states is in the other direction.
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I also wrote a brief post yesterday about Chicago as “Subsidy City.” The truth is, we have a mixed-market economy featuring both raw capitalism and outright socialistic mechanisms and everything in between. It’s really the only way a complex, modern economy can be run, and that’s what makes all the free-market rhetoric such a bunch of malarkey. The real question isn’t about binary, textbook ideologies, but who wins and who loses. Who is benefiting and who is getting screwed? And how and why are those choices made? That’s the game, folks. Study that, University of Chicago.
CBGB Ticket Contest
The Beachwood is giving away six tickets to the Chicago Bluegrass & Blues Festival, to be held at the Congress Theater on Nov. 22, to the 12th e-mailer. Beachwood members and/or those who contributed to Division Street’s Election Night blogging will have their e-mails counted twice. The tickets can be broken into pairs for multiple winners.
Dr. Drew News
Loveline is coming back to town.
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The Genius of Celebrity Rehab.
Job Description
– h/t: Illinois Review
Chicago and Back
Time lapse of the drive from Oklahoma City to Chicago and back.
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The Beachwood Reporter Tip Line: For once in your life.
Posted on November 12, 2008