- Obama was elected as an outside "reform" candidate running outside the Machine. So even if the bigotry were accurate, it would not apply to Obama.
- People typically associate Capone with Chicago Democrats when, as we all know, Capone ruled the roost when Chicago had one party rule under Republicans during the era between the Civil War and the Great Depression. Republican mafia ties is a good part of why Chicago has been so solidly Democratic ever since.
- Further to that point, if the mob had the wholesale influence on all things Chicago as they suppose, then Chicago would be Republican! Even pointing to the Mafia/Republican strongholds of Cicero and Rosement does nothing to combat this bigotry as the response I usually get in the country is "it's all still Chicago".
Sidebar: to the person who feels the need to point out that some Chicago Democrats have been in bed with the mafia as well ... yes, we all know that not every Democrat is an angel and every Republican a devil. But the Democratic Machine has *never* approached the level of mafioso involvement of Cook County Republicans.
- As a rule, the Feds do not get to launch investigations on a whim. They need cause. When a Federal case in New York wound up a few years back the New York delegation in Congress put immediate pressure on the Department of Justice to close the case so the Feds could not continue a never-ending fishing expedition. Conversely, Chicago and Cook County have had an ongoing Federal investigation going since the 1920s! No large, and few small, bodies in the world could go through that kind of scrutiny without turning up some dirt from time to time.
Having grown up on a farm just north of Kentucky with a father who knew "where the bodies were buried" so to speak, I know almost firsthand the level of corruption you find in rural communities. Where I grew up it was nearly 100% pervasive. My brother got elected to the county 4-H fair board of all things and ran face full into corruption.
One time the county prosecutor died in office. The governor, from the party in minority in that rural county, got to appoint an outside prosecutor from his party. Half the politicians were in jail before the next election.
I argued this point with a rural DUer once. In my first post I pointed out how corruption works in rural areas. Useful idiots, who wouldn't trust a nun if she came from Chicago, know for absolute certain that the politicians in their town/county are clean because they've known them since kindergarten and just "know" that they would never do anything wrong. And what was the rural DUer's argument against that?
"I've known these people since we were kids and know for a fact that they are good people."
I just had to laugh. Their local pols go to church, help in the community, love their kids, etc. What? And Chicago pols don't? A lot of rural folk seem to believe that crooked pols walk around twirling their handlebar mustaches and laughing an evil laugh.
= new reply since forum marked as read