Daley Election Landslide Sedates Raucous Politics : There’s a strange silence in City of Big Shoulders, which has been racially divided. A lack of Runyonesque politicians is cited.

There’s a strange new sound echoing through the halls and back rooms of government in Chicago, where politics has so often been measured in decibels. It’s called silence.

For much of the last decade, Carl Sandburg’s City of Big Shoulders seemed more like the Center of Crass Loudmouths. Black and white politicians united mostly in their disdain for one another and weren’t afraid to say it. Paranoia and race-baiting ran rampant, and many so-called “leaders” on both sides of the racial divide weren’t shy about exploiting stereotypes and fears to bolster their clout.

“Beirut by the Lake” some called it as Chicago heatedly zigzagged through four mayors in six years--two of them white and two black.

Chalk it up, in part, to weariness, but the hysteria appears to have calmed with last month’s landslide reelection of Democratic Mayor Richard M. Daley, who is white.

After completing a special two-year term to fill a vacancy in the mayor’s office, Daley was sworn in Monday to his first full term and declared that his administration had moved the city forward by “overcoming divisiveness.”

To some extent, the present climate represents an evolution of Chicago’s long and proud political customs, which historically have been about as subtle as a sock in the kisser. Court decisions have banned patronage, the “you back me, I hire you” grease that kept the well-oiled Democratic machine running smoothly for decades.

What’s more, death, electoral defeats and federal prosecutors have combined to rid--the wistful nostalgic might say rob--the city of a once overflowing treasure-trove of colorful, brazenly outlandish public figures. “There are just fewer Damon Runyonesque . . . characters in Chicago than there used to be,” lamented Northwestern University management professor Louis H. Masotti, once a top adviser to Jane M. Byrne, a former mayor whom no one ever accused of being dull.

That Daley should come to epitomize, or at least capitalize on, a new, sedated image of politics here is a little ironic. After all, he is the son of and heir to the partisan legacy of the late Richard J. Daley, the legendary machine boss whose very name could once prompt high-minded reformer types to sputter and hyperventilate.

In many ways, the 49-year-old younger Daley seems the spitting image of his dad. He’s short, a little squat, a devoted family man, proud Irish Catholic, short-tempered and readily given to both mangling the English language and cackling in a nervous, high-pitched giggle.

On the other hand, it’s hard to imagine The Old Man pumping iron each day at a tony health club, having a black press secretary and police chief, tabbing a Puerto Rican woman to be his running mate on the city ticket or picking a gay men’s glee club to entertain at his inaugural (Richard M. Daley has done all of these).

Although some critics question Daley’s sincerity, shows of openness seem to have at least temporarily suppressed racial brush fires that have roared through City Hall in recent years as blacks and whites jockeyed for power. Perhaps the best evidence of change can be found at the ballot box.

Ever since 1983, when the late Harold Washington was elected to be the city’s first black mayor, an axiom of politics here has been that whites voted largely for white candidates and blacks voted overwhelmingly for blacks.

Even when he first won the mayor’s job two years ago--in a special election after Washington’s death and the brief reign of a black interim mayor--Daley could hardly buy a black vote (not that he literally tried, Chicago political traditions notwithstanding).

This time around, however, Daley received some significant endorsements from black religious leaders as well as a more respectable 27% of the black vote, even though he faced black opponents who made blunt appeals to racial solidarity.

Not even the rosiest of analysts would admit that black politicians or the black community in general has embraced Daley. Rather, they say, Daley may be the beneficiary of infighting among black leaders still floundering in a power vacuum left by Washington’s death. In addition, Paul Green, a political scientist at Governors State University, explained, some black politicians might be preparing to jump on the Daley bandwagon simply to avoid being left behind.

“There are a lot of black aldermen (who) on many issues will go very quietly with Daley because it’s inevitable he’s going to win,” Green said. “There’s a tradition in Chicago of being on the winning side.”