May 4, 2011
"ROYALTY" PREVAILS IN 38TH, 50TH WARD ALDERMANIC RUNOFFS

ANALYSIS & OPINION BY RUSS STEWART

Over the past week, the "spectacle" of British royalty has dominated the news. The high and once mighty are perpetuating their bloodlines.

An endless procession of princes and princesses, dukes and duchesses, lords and ladies, earls and viscounts have pranced across the international stage. Other than enjoy, due to the quirk of birth, a life of ease and luxury, indulge in the pomp, fluff and idleness of their station, and provide endless public amusement due to their indiscretions and idiocy, what do they do?

Answer: They suck up and waste tax dollars.

Does this not bear a resemblance to Chicago, where a gaggle of hereditary politicians rule their domains like monarchs? There are the Princes of Bridgeport, emanating from the House O'Daley, currently the Lord Mayor, Lord White House Chief of Staff and Lord County Chancellor of the Exchequer. There are, from the Southwest Side, Lord Lipinski, Duke O'Hynes and the Prince and Princess McMadigan, as well as Lord Edward II of Burke.

There is, from the Northwest Side, Duke Dick of Mell, King Joe Berrios of Chicago's Isle of Puerto Rico, Princess Marge d'Laurino and the Duke and Duchess O'Cullerton. After the April 5 election, there area a couple of pretenders to the throne: Prince Ira and Princess Debra of West Rogers Park, the Northwest Side's new power couple, Chicago's equivalent of Will and Kate.

The forebears of British royalty were a tawdry and unscrupulous collection of soldiers of fortune, charlatans, thugs and quasi-criminals who connived land grants from the crown and thereafter extracted subservience and taxes from endangered peasants by promising protection. They titled themselves "lords," introduced primogeniture, begat their ill-gotten gains to their bloodline in perpetuity, and had the sanction of the Church of England.

Again, does this not resemble Chicago? In this context, or subtext, here's an analysis of the April 5 runoffs in the 38th and 50th wards where, respectively, the Cullerton royalty prevailed and the royal pain Berny Stone was ousted by the Silversteins, who became, in politically incorrect Chicago, the second instance of an alderman married to a committeeman.

38th Ward (west Portage Park, Old Irving Park, Belmont-Central, Dunning, Dunham Park): Don't call him Timid Lord Timmy. He's Terrible Tim, akin to feared Russian monarch Ivan the Terrible. The 38th Ward's royal duke and duchess, who trace their antecedents to the 1870s, are Alderman Tim Cullerton and his sister, Democratic Committeeman Patti Jo Cullerton.

They, genetically and metaphysically, absorbed this lesson from their political forebears: It's not how you play the game, it's how you win. Burn, obliterate, eviscerate, eradicate and exterminate all who threaten the "Cullerton Clan," and keep those pesky commoners in their place.

On April 5, 62-year-old Tim Cullerton, who was appointed alderman in 2010 to succeed his brother-in-law, Tom Allen (now a judge), brutalized, pulverized and all but cannibalized his opponent, Tom Caravette. Cullerton won by 4,761-3,119, getting 60.4 percent of the vote and carrying 50 of 53 precincts (with one tied) in a turnout of 7,880. The Cullerton duo raised $386,044 and spent $374,279 through March 31. The duke's aldermanic campaign was boosted by the endorsements of big-money Chicago unions, the Chicago Tribune and Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel.

"I was getting five mailers a week, sometimes two a day" from Cullerton in the runoff, said Bart Goldberg, who finished third in the Feb. 22 general election. At least half of the mailings were negative on Caravette, a longtime area real estate agent and property investor. Two ripped him as a "slumlord," citing largely superficial court building code violations on his properties, another slammed him for taking two home owner property tax exemptions, which undermined his integrity, and a third hit him for having a dissolved corporation that owned the properties.

Cullerton attacked and discredited Caravette, and Caravette offered no rebuttal, Goldberg noted. A half-dozen phone calls to Caravette seeking comment elicited no reply.

"We had no money," griped a former Caravette campaign aide. According to disclosure reports, Caravette raised $23,871 and spent $20,940 through March 31. In addition, Goldberg said, Caravette had no message. "All he did at candidate forums and endorsement sessions was criticize Cullerton and the Cullertons," Goldberg said. "He had no vision for the ward, and he failed to unite the ward's anti-Cullerton majority."

On Feb. 22, in a turnout of 12,228, Cullerton got 5,823 votes (47.6 percent of the total cast) in an eight-candidate field. The seven challengers got a combined 6,405 votes (52.4 percent of the total), with Caravette finishing a distant second with 2,705 votes (22.1 percent). Cullerton finished first in 51 of 53 precincts (Goldberg was first in two), won an absolute majority in 21, and got more than 60 percent of the vote in five.

For the runoff, Cullerton was in control: Alderman Pat Levar's 45th Ward precinct captains invaded the 38th Ward, the unions, especially the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and Service Employees International Union, sent dozens of workers, and their staffers ran the Cullerton campaign. Money flowed freely. The anti-Cullerton candidates did not coalesce behind Caravette, and even though a Cullerton or a Cullerton relation has been the alderman for 76 of the 78 years since the 38th Ward was created in 1933, including Tim Cullereton's father, grandfather and uncle, there was no serious "Cullerton fatigue." For the record, the first Cullerton, Eddie, was an alderman from 1871 to 1920 on the West Side.

Cullerton ran extraordinarily well in his Portage Park base, and won eight precincts with more than 70 percent of the vote and two with more than 80 percent. Turnout on April 5 dropped by 4,396, Cullerton's vote declined by 1,101, and the anti-Cullerton vote decreased by a shocking 3,295 -- 51 percent. Caravette's vote inched up from 2,705 to 3,110. Of the 3,700 votes cast on Feb. 22 for the six other anti-Cullerton candidates, only 405 stuck with Caravette in the runoff. The Cullerton attack mailings "just destroyed" Caravette, Goldberg said.

The bottom line: Cullerton won because he was unflawed and well funded, had a legendary name, and aggressively accentuated Caravette's negatives. The Duke and Duchess O'Cullerton suppressed the uprising.

50th Ward (West Rogers Park): Politicians are always loquacious in delivering eulogies for others, but never for themselves. "I ran against the machine," the 83-year-old Stone said, meaning the Emanuel and union machine. "It all just went haywire," he added, even though he raised $308,657 and spent $313,520 from July 1, 2010, through March 31.

The line of demarcation in the 50th Ward is Washtenaw Avenue, which is 2700 West. To the west are 25 heavily Jewish precincts, with concentrations of Orthodox Jews in the area east of Kedzie Avenue between Touhy Avenue and Howard Street, and thousands of elderly Jews in the Winston Towers condominiums near Lerner Park, which contain six precincts.

To the east, in the 20 precincts around Warren Park and Rogers Park, are enclaves of gentiles and apartments teeming with Indians, Pakistanis, Koreans, Vietnamese, Chinese, Laotians, Thais and Russians. Although a minority of the actual population, Jews make up roughly 55 percent (about 14,000) of the 26,026 registered voters.

In February, Emanuel got 7,217 votes (62.9 percent of the total cast) in the ward, to 4,295 (37.5 percent) for Stone. Debra Silverstein finished second with 3,856 votes (33.6 percent), with Greg Brewer (2,154), Ahmed Khan (669) and Mike Moses (486) rounding out the field, in a turnout of 11,460. Stone finished first in 26 of 45 precincts and had a majority in eight, while Silverstein was first in 13 and had a majority in none. The total vote for the three Jewish candidates (Stone, Silverstein and Moses) was 8,637 (75.3 percent of the total), of which Stone had 49.7 percent -- a clear indication of erosion of his support among Jewish voters.

That set up a Stone-Silverstein runoff on April 5. When an incumbent like Stone, who has been an alderman since 1973, gets less than 40 percent of the vote in the general election, it's a dire situation. In the 2007 runoff, with the Daley "machine" pouring in staff, money and manpower, Stone eked out a 705-vote victory over Maisy Dolar, an Asian-American woman backed who was by white liberals and minorities, getting 6,015 votes (53.1 percent of the total) to 5,310 for Dolar in a turnout of 11,325.

Stone won the Jewish western portion of the ward by 4,221-2,111, getting 66.6 percent of the vote and taking Winston Towers by 804-178. Dolar won eastern portion of the ward by 3,199-1,794, with 64.1 percent of the vote. Stone won because of a unified Jewish vote. In the 2011 runoff, as Stone said, it went "haywire." Against a candidate who is an Orthodox Jew, Stone lost the western portion by 2,512-2,780, getting 47.5 percent of the vote, and got crushed 1,234-3,172 (with 28.0 percent of the vote) in the eastern portion. Stone won Winston Towers by just 324-307, and Silverstein took 33 of 45 precincts.

Ever tactless, Stone had no congratulatory words for his vanquishers. "He's destroyed the (50th Ward) Democratic party," Stone said of Ira Silverstein, who beat him for committeeman in 2008. "I'm feeling good."

"Voters were just fed up" with Stone, said Ira Silverstein, Debra Silverstein's husband, who has been the area's state senator since 1998, adding that Stone's abrasiveness, antics, motor mouth and poor services became intolerable. In the 50th Ward, the House of Silverstein is the new royal family.