- Sun-Times Media
- Rahm Emanuel speaks at a 2005 press conference with former mayor Richard M. Daley, whose patronage machine had helped send Emanuel to Congress three years earlier.
For a few seconds the other day, I thought I’d been transported by a magical time-travel machine to the early 2000s, when Mayor Daley ruled the land.
Or, more specifically, to the hundreds of city employees—most of them water or sanitation department workers—dispatched by political bosses Donald Tomczak and Daniel Katalinic to work the precincts for Emanuel in his 2002 congressional campaign.
As a voter in Emanuel’s Fifth congressional district in 2002, I recall Tomczak’s goons on the corner pressing me to vote for Rahm because he was the mayor’s guy.
Back then Emanuel was virtually unknown in the Fifth congressional district, though he was well known in Washington for his years as a Clinton White House aide. In fact, he was so thirsty to establish a local connection that he went around telling voters his uncle was a retired city cop—just in case anyone were inclined to write him off as another transplant from Wilmette.
If you say so, Mr. Mayor.
