Chicago Alderman Toni Preckwinkle thanks commuters at the Ogilvie Transportation Center February 3, 2010 after winning the Democratic nomination for President of the Cook County Board in the Illinois primary. José Moré/Chicago News Cooperative
As chants of “Toni, Toni, Toni” washed over her on Tuesday night, Alderman Toni Preckwinkle’s pearl necklace glistened in the bright glare of televised victory. She had just become the Democratic nominee for Cook County Board president.
Ms. Preckwinkle’s success is the latest example of Hyde Park’s serving as a launching pad for black politicians putting together multiracial coalitions to win higher office.
Long known as a liberal bastion of independence from City Hall and the city’s Democratic political establishment, Hyde Park has bred political figures who use the skills developed in that diverse South Side enclave to establish careers that take them far beyond Hyde Park.
But Ms. Preckwinkle’s likely ascension in November’s general election to the board presidency, long known as a patronage plum, exposes a less-ballyhooed fact of life in Hyde Park: The neighborhood’s political mavericks may brandish strong liberal credentials, but they gain power by entering into a marriage of convenience with the Democratic establishment that remains at the center of Chicago’s political universe, the office of Mayor Richard M. Daley.
Barack Obama went from community organizing to become a United States senator and president of the United States; Harold Washington, a trailblazing Democrat who made his reputation as a liberal political maverick, rose from Hyde Park to become Chicago’s first black mayor; and Carol Moseley Braun, the first black woman elected to the United States Senate, based her political career in Hyde Park.
Now Ms. Preckwinkle has become the latest black politician from Hyde Park and neighboring Kenwood to rise by crafting a campaign that appealed to Cook County voters’ intermittent willingness to cross racial lines in electing leaders.
Indeed, behind-the-scenes financial and political support from allies and relatives of the mayor were crucial to Ms. Preckwinkle’s victory in a four-way race in which she defeated Terrence O’Brien, president of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District; Dorothy Brown, the Cook County clerk; and Todd Stroger, the incumbent president who was heir to his father’s black political empire and a former ally of Mr. Daley.
Aides and allies of the mayor attended Ms Preckwinkle’s victory party, and the comments of those she defeated mixed regret with a dollop of political reality.
“Nobody does anything unless the mayor says it’s O.K.,” Mr. Stroger said Tuesday night in an interview in his hotel room after his fourth-place finish, a loss he attributed partly to the cold shoulder he got from the mayor.
In the salons or University of Chicago classrooms, few of the elite who give Hyde Park its unique political heft like to think of their neighborhood as a an appendage of City Hall. Instead, they focus on how they have begun carving out a reputation as a launching pad to national prominence.
The neighborhood’s racial and economic diversity, intellectual resources and political traditions have pushed Hyde Park forward. The tensions and challenges that accompany diversity prepare the neighborhood’s politicians to deal with those issues on larger stages. That accounts for the success of Hyde Park’s black politicians, said Jamie Kalven, an author, public housing advocate and lifelong resident of the Hyde Park area.
“Hyde Park-Kenwood is not just an integrated neighborhood,” Mr. Kalven said. “It’s an integrated neighborhood that is politically caffeinated and has deep, chronic, underlying tensions, both cultural and historical.”
Today, the same neighborhood contains University of Chicago economists who have had great influence on national and international policies, leading jurists like the conservative Richard Posner, as well as, not far away, the headquarters for the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition. Of almost 30,000 people who live there, 43.5 percent are white, 37.7 percent are black, 11.3 percent are Asian and 4.1 percent are Latino, according to 2000 census figures.
State Senator Kwame Raoul, whose 13th Legislative District includes Hyde Park, where he grew up, said the neighborhood tested the mettle of young politicians.
“There’s greater accountability,” Mr. Raoul said. “People are paying attention. You have to explain yourself. That’s a good training ground to sell yourself across the city and the state.”
Paul Fischer, who taught political science at Lake Forest College for 36 years before retiring two years ago, has held fund-raisers in his Evanston home for three of Hyde Park’s best-known prodigies: Ms. Preckwinkle, Ms. Braun and Mr. Obama.
“I think African-American politicians living in Hyde Park and running in Hyde Park have a lot of experience attracting white supporters and voters,” Mr. Fischer said. “It’s partly about communication. It’s partly about issues. Living there, you develop a comfort level across racial lines.”
Still, there are limits to the Hyde Park aura. It sometimes plays better in liberal, mostly white lakefront wards than in the city’s other bases of black political power. And when it comes time for Hyde Park to deal with City Hall, power always seems to flow only in one direction: toward the mayor’s office.
When Mr. Obama, as a state senator, first took his message beyond the friendly confines of Hyde Park in 2000 to run for Congress against Representative Bobby L. Rush, he was crushed.
“Outside of Hyde Park, in a blacker community, a lot more working-class and poor community, he had a more difficult time articulating his message,” Mr. Fischer said of Mr. Obama. “But when he really branched out, his Hyde Park experience and his manner resonated with voters.”
During the county board primary campaign, Ms. Preckwinkle sought to build a message with broad appeal, regardless of race. Even among her supporters, though, questions remain about her ties to Mayor Daley.
State records show the Preckwinkle campaign received financial support last month from the law firm of the mayor’s brother Michael and from Terry Newman, Mayor Daley’s close friend. On election night, several of Mr. Daley’s allies, including the Rev. Leon Finney, one of the mayor’s biggest South Side supporters, attended Ms. Preckwinkle’s downtown victory celebration. Mr. Daley’s former chief of staff, Lori Healey, was also there.
Dr. Finney said Hyde Parkers were not averse to making deals with the Democratic establishment. “You have to be independent but realistic,” he said.
Mr. Fischer, the retired college professor, was blunter. “You don’t get very far without kissing the ring,” he said.
Even before she joined the county board race, Ms. Preckwinkle switched from skepticism to full-fledged support of Mayor Daley’s bid for the 2016 Olympics, which would have been staged largely in her ward.
Alan Dobry, a former Democratic committeeman from Hyde Park and a supporter of Ms. Preckwinkle, said he expected her to remain independent. “She won’t look for any fights with Daley,” Mr. Dobry said, “but she will be her own person.”
In a rubber-stamp City Council, Ms. Preckwinkle distinguished herself as one of the more independent aldermen. She once cast the lone vote against the mayor’s budget and was one of only five to vote against privatization of city parking. She briefly sought to form a “progressive caucus” of aldermen as a counterweight to the mayor’s power.
Alderman Joe Moore, whose 49th Ward in Rogers Park is even more diverse than Hyde Park, said that playing to a diverse political base “helps you better relate to the broader coalition you need when you move from local politics to a larger stage.”
Mr. Jackson, closely connected to Hyde Park since he moved there from the South in 1964, said Hyde Parkers focus on what they can accomplish by working across racial and even political barriers.
“Out of that comes relationships that tend to say what’s possible,” he said. “You develop a comfort level going beyond.”
In her victory speech Tuesday night, Ms. Preckwinkle paid tribute to the Hyde Park-style multiracial coalition that captured the nomination for her.
“Today, the people of Cook County have all spoken in one voice,” she said. “Black and white and Latino and Asian. Gay and straight. North Side. West Side. South Side.”
That’s the dream coalition of a politician from Hyde Park.
