Chicago Daily Observer

The fat lady is about to begin her aria.

The Democratic nomination is all about the delegates, so here are the numbers prior to the Wisconsin primary and Hawaii caucus on Tuesday Feb. 19:

Barack Obama has 1,116 pledged delegates—won in primaries and caucuses; Hillary Clinton has 989, with 2025 needed for nomination. A handful is pledged to others, such as John Edwards.

There are 18 more states and territories to yet to vote, with a total of 1,078 delegates to be selected.

Of these, three big ones—Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania with a total of 492 delegates—are believed to be Clinton’s “firewall.” Let’s assume she carries these strongly with an average of 56 percent and thus gains 276 more delegates to Obama’s 216. (If there are any surprises here they will be to Obama’s benefit as his momentum can seriously reduce the spread.)

That leaves a total of 586 delegates ... Read More...

In further Adventures of the Ed Page at Chi Trib, we see or may surmise that State’s Attorney Dick Devine went for top billing for an op-ed with this, beginning thus:

In recent weeks the Tribune has mentioned prosecutorial “misconduct” in its editorial pages. This is a term that grabs the public’s attention, so it is important that the efforts of our office on this issue be stated.

Nothing doing, as the world turned. Instead, unlike Mayor Daley yesterday and Congr. Jesse Jackson Jr. the day before, he is awarded no such encomium. His Voice of the People contribution, on the other hand, is a mere letter, albeit the lede.

No surprise there. He’s county, neither city nor congressional district, and lame duck besides.

Substantively speaking, he offers this as part of his defense of his office, recently criticized in a primary campaign and already criticized in the general:

“Our ... Read More...

During the year that Mayor Daley’s son had a hidden ownership stake in a sewer company, the business not only landed lucrative deals at City Hall, it also got work from another local government—the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago.

Records show the Water Reclamation District paid the company, Municipal Sewer Services, more than $200,000 to inspect sewers under a contract awarded in 2004. At the time, the agency’s top administrator was John Farnan, a longtime member of the 11th Ward Democratic organization run by the mayor’s brother, Cook County Commissioner John Daley. Farnan, who has since retired, did not return calls seeking comment.

It ranks with Alderman Pat Levar’s (45th) disastrous bid for Clerk of the Circuit Court in 2000, and county Treasurer Maria Pappas’s fizzled campaign for U.S. Senator in 2004. Add to that Alderman Howard Brookins’ (21st) embarrassingly inept bid for state’s attorney on Feb. 5.

We now have a triumvirate: Dumb, dumber and dumbest.

The 2008 Democratic primary was supposed to be the Big Black Blowout, with black Democrats sweeping every county office in the wake of a Barack Obama lovefest for president. Indeed, Obama crushed Hillary Clinton in Cook County, amassing 708,276 votes (70.7 percent) to her 301,747. But the city and county black vote was not, as expected, monolithic. Brookins garnered an astounding 542,492 fewer votes than did Obama.

“He didn’t show his face,” said one Democratic observer. “He had lots of yard signs – Obama and Brookins. He had lots of ads on black radio. But he ... Read More...