Dear Editor,
Some rather interesting parallels can be drawn between the election of Chicago’s first African-American mayor in 1983 and the current candidacy of Senator Barack Obama to become the first US president of African-American (or multi-racial) ancestry.
First of all, Harold Washington had to defeat Jane Byrne in the Democratic primary. As was the case with Senator Hillary Clinton, Jane Byrne was white and, of course, female. She was actually the first female mayor of Chicago, the only difference being that she was the incumbent Mayor when she lost to Harold Washington.
The current Mayor, Richard J. Daley had also lost to Washington in the said Democratic primary.
After Harold Washington defeated both Byrne and Daley in the primary, his next task was to win the general election against the Republican candidate, Bernard Epton.
Now, Chicago is a very Democratic city, and once you were the Democratic nominee, your chance of winning the general election was really a done deal.
But as Harold Washington found out the hard way, that was if you happened to be white. To win the Democratic primary, Harold Washington received overwhelming black support (95%), significant white (liberal) support and he also obtained a majority of the Latino votes. (Don’t those figures remind you of Obama, who also did well with Whites in the primary against Hillary Clinton, though Mrs Clinton got a slight majority of the Latino vote?)
Right now, Obama faces the same problem that Washington faced in 1983. How does he get solid support among white Democrats (blue collar and white collar, male and female, old and young)?
He is doing well with the white collar worker and the young, white Democratic voter, but what about the others? He also needs to do well with those voters in order to beat McCain.
In the mayoral general election in Chicago, many white Democrats voted for Bernard Epton, the Republican because he was white, thereby causing Harold Washington to almost lose the election. In fact, Harold Washington (known for his great charisma and intellect) defeated Epton (a lack-lustre political unknown) by the narrow margin of 3.7% of the votes cast.
So, Washington barely succeeded in becoming the first African-American mayor, but died of a heart attack before completing his first term in office.
The Chicago City Council voted in another African-American by the name of Eugene Sawyer to complete Washington’s mayoral term. Most black Chicagoans didn’t see Sawyer as a fitting successor to Washington because they saw him as weak, and lacking Washington’s political savvy, strength and intellect.
Blacks also saw Sawyer as a wishy-washy leader and someone who could easily be controlled by the white wing of the City Council, that was very much in opposition to Washington, because of his unwillingness to cut back-room deals and the reform policies that he had introduced to the City Council. Under Washington, political patronage had also become a thing of the past, and in his inaugural speech as Mayor he had said, “There will be no more business as usual,” in reference to the corrupt practices of previous administrations.
Such statements had made a lot of enemies for Washington among white Democrats in the City Council, even though Washington was himself a Democrat, and they also illustrate the fact that there were many qualitative differences between Washington and Sawyer. They also show that Blacks generally put qualifications above race when selecting their political representatives, as is exemplified by their overwhelming opposition to Eugene Sawyer. Harold Washington must be stirring in his grave right now, to see history repeating itself in the person of Barack Obama.
Yours faithfully,
Rudy Vyfhuis
