Cook County Commissioner Mike Quigley's ill-concealed intention to run for Cook County Board president in 2006 could, if successful, precipitate a rash of joblessness in Chicago's South Side 8th Ward.

The gaggle of Democratic presidential candidates regularly chastise President George Bush and the Republicans for job losses, but there is no jobs-creation problem in the 8th Ward. For over three decades, the economic engine in that black-majority ward near Hyde Park has been John Stroger, the current board president, whose obsession with patronage is legendary.

In fact, according to political sources, the 8th Ward, where Stroger is the Democratic committeeman, has more Chicago and Cook County job holders per capita than any other city ward, including the Bridgeport 11th Ward and the Far Southwest Side 19th Ward. And every 8th Ward jobholder -- be they County Hospital nurses and orderlies, County Building janitorial and maintenance personnel, or upper-echelon managers -- works all or part of a precinct and donates to Stroger's ward organization.

Stroger, age 74, has been a committeeman since 1968, a commissioner since 1970 and the board's president since 1994. He is a longtime ally of Mayor Rich Daley, and he is the mayor's most prominent and productive black supporter. Stroger's 8th Ward habitually cranks out awesome majorities for Democrats over Republicans in elections and solid majorities for Daley-backed candidates in Democratic primaries. In 1999, when Daley faced Bobby Rush, who is black, Daley lost the 8th Ward by just 9,144-7,319; in 2003 Daley crushed Paul Jakes 7,896-3,582.

It's no secret that the real power on the county board is Commissioner John Daley, the mayor's brother and Finance Committee chairman. John Daley really runs county government, which is a vibrant economic engine with 24,000 jobs and a budget which will top $3 billion in 2004.

Stroger, who has suffered from prostate cancer in recent years, is content to attend to his patronage matters. But, of late, the county has suffered from a budget crunch, which creates a problem for the mayor in 2006. Daley does not want Quigley to be board president, and he can't run his brother for the job, since that would be one too many Daleys in major office. And if Stroger resorts to a tax increase in 2004 or 2005 to close the current $100 million county budget shortfall, he may make himself unelectable in 2006.

Stroger has been embroiled in a budget feud with Cook County Sheriff Mike Sheahan, a fellow Democrat. Stroger wants Sheahan to cut 40 jobs; Sheahan wants a budget appropriation for 138 new County Jail guards, and he recently yanked five sheriff's police who had been assigned to Stroger's security detail and who acted as his drivers. The spat makes both Stroger and Sheahan look petty and foolish.

In addition, Stroger promised no property tax hikes in both his 1998 and 2002 campaigns, and he has kept that promise. But now he's musing about imposing a hotel tax and a tax on leased cars and hiking the county's share of the sales tax (to 1 percent overall), which would increase the sales tax to a total of 9 percent in Chicago. By 2006, when Stroger must run for re-election, the county's budget will be well beyond $3 billion, and even more non-property tax hikes will be needed. That gives any Stroger foe an attacking point.

Also, Stroger's attempt to create a countywide dynasty has faltered. He eagerly desires that his son, Alderman Todd Stroger (8th), succeed him as board president. Stroger engineered the election of his son to the Illinois House in 1992, and when Alderman Lorraine Dixon (8th) died in October 2001, Daley appointed Todd Stroger to the aldermanic vacancy. He was elected in 2003 to his first full term with 69 percent of the vote.

But while Stroger can nurture his son's rise in the 8th Ward, and can even hand off his 4th District board seat to his son, making him board president in 2006 is an utter impossibility. Quigley will seek the post, as might Sheahan, who is still popular after 13 years as sheriff. If county Treasurer Maria Pappas loses her bid for U.S. senator in 2004, she, too, might run for Stroger's job.

Sheahan, age 58, is the former alderman from the Far Southwest Side 19th Ward, where Daley ally and former assessor Tom Hynes is the committeeman. While in the City Council from 1979 to 1990, Sheahan was part of the "Vrdolyak 29," but that has not stymied his countywide political advancement. Sheahan is weary of what he has called Stroger's "blame game." Even though crime rates are stable, the incarceration time of County Jail inmates -- both those awaiting trial and those sentenced to less than a year -- is lengthening. With fewer releases, the jail is perpetually overcrowded, and prisoner and employee costs are increasing.

Sheahan wants more guards. Stroger wants every county office holder to cut his or her budget. Sheahan is outraged.

According to sources, Sheahan is seriously considering a bid for board president in 2006, a move that would clear the way for 19th Warder and former state representative Tom Dart, who lost a race for state treasurer in 2002 and who now is one of Sheahan's top aides, to run for sheriff in 2006. Like the 8th Ward, the powers in the 19th jealously guard their patronage empire. If Sheahan were board president and Dart were sheriff, the 19th Ward would be Chicago's new patronage paradise.

But Quigley, a commissioner since 1998 from the Lakefront 10th District, could foil the grandiose plans of the 8th and 19th wards. Quigley recently released his plan to "reform" county government, titled "Reinventing Cook County."

Among his proposals, which he claims would save more than $50 million annually, were the elimination of township government, the privatization of sheriff's civil process serving, the absorption of local sanitary districts into the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, the elimination of the county's highway department, the abolition of the sheriff's police in the county's unincorporated areas (and the assignment of their duties to adjacent municipalities), and, most dramatically, the consolidation of the county's clerk's, assessor's, recorder's and treasurer's offices into one mega-office.

Understandably, the Stroger-Daley contingent was unimpressed with the Quigley plan. But, of the board's 17 commissioners, five are Republicans and four are independent Democrats -- Quigley, Forest Claypool, Larry Suffredin and Joan Murphy. Together, they comprise a board majority. They could embrace some or all of Quigley's plan, and they could defeat some or all of Stroger's tax-hike proposals.

Quigley is a former aide to Alderman Bernie Hansen (44th), and he was once viewed as a loyal cog in the Daley Lakefront machine. But after winning Pappas' County Board seat in 1998, Quigley has compiled a controversial record which makes him popular with his Lakefront constituents, but not necessarily elsewhere. As a fiscal conservative, Quigley has sought to slash the number of Cook County Forest Preserve District job holders, particularly the district's police force, and to upgrade services, and he also worked to block the transfer of forest preserve land to Rosemont for a casino. Quigley also pushed an ethics ordinance for county employees, which prompted Stroger to attack him for "self-aggrandizement."

On social issues, Quigley has pushed gender pay parity and a gay partner registry. He led the fight to prevent the Boy Scouts from getting a 25-year agreement for the use of county property on the grounds that they violate the county's human rights ordinance, which bans discrimination against gays and lesbians.

That record sells well along the Lakefront, especially in the 44th Ward, which has a large gay population and where Quigley is the acting Democratic committeeman, but it won't sell well in the city's white ethnic areas, on the Northwest or Southwest Side, or in some suburban areas. When Hansen resigned as alderman in 2002, Daley made it clear that Quigley would not be considered for the post, and he appointed Tom Tunney as Chicago's first gay alderman. Hansen, still the committeeman, now spends most of his time in Arizona, and Quigley is running the ward organization in his stead. It is unclear whether Hansen will run in 2004 or bow out and back Quigley.

In 2006, however, Quigley need not win a countywide primary majority. The question is: Can he get the 35 percent of the vote that he needs to win a multi-candidate race? In 1994, when Stroger won his first term as board president, he got 295,358 votes (47.1 percent) in the primary, to 180,610 (28.8 percent) for Aurie Pucinski and 150,489 (24.1 percent) for Pappas.

According to party insiders, Stroger would step aside in 2006 for John Daley, provided that the party slates Todd Stroger for assessor -- a job now held by Jim Houlihan, who is allied with Hynes and the 19th Warders, and who will not step aside. But Daley isn't likely to run for board president, and Sheahan is. And if Sheahan runs, so will John Stroger.

The outlook: Quigley has a Lakefront base -- roughly the 25 percent that backed Pappas. Quigley has an issue: "reforming" county government. And Quigley has two prospective foes -- Stroger and Sheahan -- who could split the black vote and the pro-Daley white ethnic vote. It is unlikely that Quigley would prevail, as the mayor would move his troops behind either Stroger or Sheahan at the last minute. But a Quigley win is now in the realm of possibility.