A while ago Channel 11’s Chicago Tonight gave nine Republican mayoral candidates three minutes each to speak. The parade included a man in dark glasses proposing the creation of some kind of secret service to patrol the subways, a bungalow dweller who seems to think life would be better if the non-Aryan populations left town, a University of Chicago political science major, and a man who reminded public-television viewers that the mayor’s office isn’t nearly as powerful as the mass media.
Chicago Republicans, who have enough trouble being taken seriously, weren’t impressed with Dean Rosenberg.
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Knowing that no revolution has ever been won on the phone, Rosenberg invited me to his champagne-and-caviar fund-raiser. “You really have to see my artwork. It’s of a higher consciousness. I’m making an important artistic statement of vision for the city of Chicago.”
“I get fed up thinking about all the people who wish Daley’s father would come back and put Chicago back in the 50s or 60s. That’s Daleyvision, living in the past. What we ought to do is look to the future. We’re going to be living in space colonies during our lifetimes.”
Bill Curry from the Cook County Republican office sounded a good deal more satisfied the second time we spoke. “Of the 11 original candidates, only 4 will be on the ballot. There’s Holowinski [since dropped out], Sohn, Grutzmacher, and that perennial guy who wears the Scottish hat. I forget his name.”
