Son of Legendary Boss Ahead of Black Acting Mayor in Polls : A Younger Daley Stirs Old Loyalties in Chicago

It was not quite the Second Coming, but you would have thought so from the way the crowd went wild when Richard M. Daley entered the room.

A Dixieland band was tooting out a toe-tapping version of “Chicago, Chicago,” the local answer to “Hail to the Chief,” which they had started playing on cue a moment earlier, when Acting Mayor Eugene Sawyer walked through the door.

Unlike Daley, Sawyer had been greeted with only polite applause, but what more could he expect? This was Daley country, the working-class neighborhood of Bridgeport where Daley’s father, the legendary Mayor Richard J. Daley, lived his whole life. Tonight a library was being dedicated in his honor. Sawyer was something of an interloper at this family affair.

Sawyer will be squaring off against Daley in the Democratic mayoral primary on Feb. 28. There is no need to ask which candidate people came to see.

“If I could just get a glimpse of Richard Daley,” sighed a 50-ish-looking woman with an Irish brogue as she struggled to squeeze through the crowd.

Photographs on Display

Easier to see were two photographs that hung on the wall above the desk where library books are checked out and returned.

One was of Sawyer. It is his smiling official portrait, and in it he appears amiable though bland, much like the man himself--the spitting image of someone’s favorite uncle waking up from a nap.

The other--slightly larger--photograph was of the legend, the Boss who ruled this city for 21 years until his death in 1976. He looked dapper and, well, Boss-like, in a black fedora and coat, a white handkerchief in his breast pocket.

“Did you see the pictures on the wall?” a woman in the audience asked a friend. “Did you see the signs hanging in front of them? The sign in front of Daley says ‘Return,’ and the one in front of Sawyer says ‘Check Out.’ ”

Loud laughter.

Throughout the packed room people independently noted the symbolism, and loved it. If the polls and pundits are correct, Sawyer indeed may be checking out of the mayor’s office on City Hall’s fifth floor come April, when the general election will be held. Boss Daley will not be returning, barring a resurrection the likes of which even Chicago has never seen. But for many residents of Bridgeport and other areas of the city, the younger Daley’s emergence is the next best thing.

Significant Election

Racially speaking--and in the world of Chicago politics there seems to be no other way--the election is a significant one.

For whites, the contest is the first chance since 1983 to regain City Hall.

For blacks, who rejoiced over Harold Washington’s victory six years ago as Chicago’s first black mayor, and who joined the Rev. Jesse Jackson in proclaiming “our time has come,” the race demonstrates that holding onto power can be as difficult as getting it in the first place.

When Daley, 46, ran for mayor the first time in 1983, he came in third, splitting the white vote with Mayor Jane M. Byrne. This helped to ensure a Washington victory. Many whites had a hard time forgiving him for that.

This time, though, it is the black electorate that is splintered. In a city with almost equal black and white populations, this discord has given Daley a golden opportunity.

Sees Peaks, Valleys

“There has always been lulls, peaks and valleys in the movement,” said Conrad Worrill, chairman of the National Black Political Front and a local activist. “If for some reason we lose the fifth floor and Richard Daley becomes mayor, then we should be prepared for that.”

Lu Palmer, another black political organizer, has an even more pessimistic view. “If young Daley gets to be the mayor, we will be thrown back to the pre-Harold Washington years and it will take who knows how many decades to recover,” he said. The black electorate, Palmer said, would be “politically devastated.”

After Washington’s sudden death in late 1987, Sawyer and black Alderman Timothy Evans competed to be chosen Washington’s successor. Evans, who was Washington’s floor leader on the City Council, proclaimed himself the late mayor’s rightful heir.

Jackson threw his support behind Evans, but Sawyer, backed by many of the whites who had battled with Washington, won the City Council selection in a stormy, all-night council meeting. In essence, that was when this mayoral campaign began, with Evans vowing to oust Sawyer from office.

To avoid a split in the black vote that would ensure a Daley victory in the primary, Evans last month formed the independent Harold Washington Party and declared that he will face the Democratic winner in the April general election.

Endorse Sawyer

A host of prominent black leaders, including Jackson, have since endorsed Sawyer in the primary. But Jackson and many of the others made it clear that they likely will support Evans in April.

For the Democratic Party nationally, there are important overtones. Ron Brown, Jackson’s 1988 convention manager and the new Democratic National Committee chairman, may find the contest to be the first test of his leadership of the party. He has already indicated he will back the winner of the party’s primary against Evans.

‘Shufflin’ Uncle Tom’

Evans has been urging his supporters to sit out the primary entirely, and in December a prominent Evans supporter began publicly referring to Sawyer as a “shufflin’ Uncle Tom,” a charge that “just sent shock waves through a large chunk of the black community,” according to Paul Green, author of a book on Washington’s last campaign.

According to a poll conducted in late January by local television station WLS, 48% of those responding supported Daley and Sawyer was favored by 32%. A third candidate in the primary, Alderman Lawrence Bloom, received 12%.

If the election were held now, 72% of the white voters, 64% of Latino voters and 17% of the black voters would support Daley, according to the poll. In Washington’s two campaigns, he had near-total black support and still barely won.

So far the contest has been relatively free of the ugly racial scenes and tensions that accompanied Washington’s campaigns and his first term in office, during which white aldermen blocked most of his initiatives. Both Sawyer and Daley have campaigned in all sections of the city and have stressed the need for racial harmony.

The campaign has so far been so low-key, in fact, that Chicago Tribune columnist Mike Royko complained last month that it is almost as if someone “slipped a large dose of Valium into the city’s water supply. . . . “

That all could be changing this week. Sawyer is unleashing a series of new hard-hitting television commercials that attack Daley’s record as state’s attorney and question his abilities.

Until now, Sawyer, who by far has the best-financed campaign with a reported $4-million war chest, has been emphasizing his “quiet, effective leadership” in his commercials.

One reason for the lack of racial divisiveness in the race is that the idea of a black mayor in Chicago is no longer new, Green said. “Chicago has had not one but two black mayors, so the fear and the novelty have pretty well worn off,” he said.

Different Players

“But most importantly,” he added, “the players are not the same. There’s no one running who can turn a phrase or turn the dagger like Harold Washington, Jane Byrne or Ed Vrdolyak (the white alderman who bitterly opposed Washington). The tensions were already there, but the way those characters played it also exacerbated it.”

To be sure, neither Sawyer nor Daley is known for either his oratory or his charisma. Although both men recently have improved their speaking styles, Sawyer’s nickname in the media remains “Mayor Mumbles.” And the malaprop-prone Daley is so reticent and shy that in the past he has had trouble putting together complete sentences.

The Chicago Tribune, in an article last week that dealt with perceptions of Daley’s intelligence, quoted one detractor as saying: “He’s just dumb as a rock. If his name were Richard M. Camper (instead of Daley), he’d be working in the post office.”

In his television commercials, Daley--who has avoided one-on-one interviews and declined to make several joint appearances with the other candidates--acknowledges that he is not a good speaker. He emphasizes his leadership abilities and his tough stands on crime and ideas for improving the schools.

One of his supporters is William Singer, a former alderman who ran unsuccessfully for mayor as a reformer against the elder Daley in 1975. He said he is impressed by Daley’s initiatives in the areas of public education, health care, child care--”social issues that the city of Chicago never really dealt with from the mayor’s office.”

“I don’t think Richie is his father,” said Singer, explaining his support. “I think Rich Daley understands that the city needs to be governed from a very different perspective.”

Dogged by Controversies

Sawyer, 54, has been dogged by the perception that he is a weak leader and by controversies over his refusal to release his tax returns. He also has been damaged by his admission shortly after he became mayor that he accepted $30,000 in consulting fees in 1978 and 1979 from an attorney seeking crucial land rezoning in his ward.

Further damaging him with Jewish voters was his slowness to fire an aide last spring who made anti-Semitic remarks.

So far the coalition of blacks, Latinos and so-called “lakefront liberals” that helped elect Washington shows no sign of coalescing again.

“The great genius of Richard J. Daley was his ability to adapt to the demographics of Chicago, and that’s what his son is doing now,” said Green of Daley’s new-found appeal to affluent whites. “He is bringing Bridgeport to the lakefront.”

Singer, the prototypical “lakefront liberal,” said he believes many whites who supported Washington are turning to Daley because of Sawyer’s perceived weaknesses and because they have been turned off by the attitude expressed by Evans’ supporters that the next mayor of Chicago, regardless of qualifications, should be black.

Daley is similar to his father in many ways, said Singer, “but the irony is that he’s not as closely aligned with the old machine politics as these other guys.”

Worked Through System

Indeed, while Washington was a reformer who long ago broke from Boss Daley’s Democratic machine, Sawyer and Evans both worked their way up through the system.

Evans talks often of the “Harold Washington movement,” of which he says he is a part. But political organizer Palmer said: “I simply do not accept Evans as a movement politician, nor do I see Sawyer in that light. I don’t know what they mean by movement. . . . By movement I mean the activities of those of us who through the years have fought against machine politics and for liberation of our people on all counts. None of the candidates fit that description.”

Researcher Tracy Shryer contributed to this story.

A Mayor For Chicago The Candidates Richard M. Daley, For some voters, a potential rebirth in City Hall. Eugene Sawyer, The legacy of Mayor Washington may be slipping. Timothy Evans, Waiting to challenge the primary winner. Influences Behind the Vote Richard J. Daley, The late mayor’s popularity is helping his son. Ron Brown, The Democratic chairman will stick with party choice. Jesse Jackson, He’s likely to switch to Evans for the general election.