Please don't confuse Jesse Jackson Jr. with his famous father. Junior is a U.S. Congressman representing the south side of Chicago plus some 30 mostly hurting towns just south of the city. Dismayed by corruption and cronyism under the reign of Richard M. Daley as Chicago Mayor, Jackson has been making noises about mounting a challenge to Prince Richard. But if he is to take the plunge, Jackson wants allies to register at least half of the 650,000 unregistered Chicago voters he believes are out there.

And among other things, Jackson has been a strong booster of a third Chicago airport south of the city, a proposal that is still alive some 20 years after it was proposed, with private financeers at the ready now. (Full disclosure: I worked for an intergovernmental agency of towns near O'Hare Airport from 1988 to 1994, which suppported the so-called Peotone Airport).

One thing I like about Jackson is his willingness to call B.S. on the Chicago Democratic machine, a quietly venal agglomeration of pin-striped crooks and politicos who want all the economic development pie, and all the contracting pie, for themselves. This bunch, and Daley's close ties to them, has everything to do with Chicago airport politics.

Here are some excerpts from today's Chicago Sun-Times article on Jackson Jr.'s speech yesterday to several hundred supporters at Operation Rainbow/PUSH's headquarters.

In his sharpest attacks to date, U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) harshly criticized Mayor Daley on Saturday, saying his administration was plagued by "corruption and greed and malfeasance,'' and said the mayor's father was closer to average voters than the current mayor.

Before a boisterous crowd of a few hundred supporters at Rainbow/PUSH headquarters, the atmosphere had the feel of a campaign rally. But Jackson said he hadn't made up his mind on whether to run for Daley's job in the 2007 election -- although he did say any candidate would need at least $4 million to unseat the mayor. He would not give a timeline for making a decision.

Jackson also took jabs at other elected officials, including state Attorney General Lisa Madigan, whom he accused of dragging her feet on weighing in on the legality of transferring state land for a third regional airport; state Senate President Emil Jones (D-Chicago), Jackson's former political rival, who Jackson said hasn't done enough for his South Side district, and the Illinois Democratic Party in general for being too beholden to corporate interests.

...the rally was as much a bid for support for building a third airport near Peotone -- which Jackson said will bring 15,000 jobs to Chicago's south suburbs -- as it was an attack on the mayor. With developers committing $200 million to the project, Jackson criticized city and state Democratic leaders for not moving more quickly. "We have a free airport that could be built almost immediately, and they ... don't want it because it's not part of the corrupt system for handing out jobs and contracts,'' he said.

Speak Truth to Power, JJJ! I hope Jackson runs. Daley II needs a swift kick in the rear.

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at July 3, 2005 11:22 AM

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