Time for Preckwinkle to finish off Stroger

Time for Preckwinkle to finish off Stroger
BY LAURA WASHINGTON
Copyright by The Chicago Sun-Times
May 18, 2009
http://www.suntimes.com/news/washington/1578812,CST-EDT-laura18.article


Where in the world is Toni Preckwinkle? It could be a compelling new story line in Hollywood's prime time fall lineup, but it's already debuting right here in Chicago.
The star of the show is Cook County Board President Todd Stroger, who is speedily upstaging that irrepressible bad boy of politics, the inimitable Blago.

Yet Stroger's only announced challenger in 2010, 4th Ward Ald. Toni Preckwinkle, is barely a bit player.

Stroger has been sinking in political boiling oil since 2006 when the county ward bosses clouted him into the presidency. Stroger's recent missteps have left him cooked, filleted and spread out to dry.

He has been seared by charges that he doled out a plum administrative job to restaurant bus man Tony Cole. Even before he got his $60,000-a-year county patronage job, Cole had a history of run-ins with the law, including two criminal convictions. He was jailed twice while working for the county. Stroger's cousin and chief financial officer, Donna Dunnings, twice bailed him out. Stroger was forced to fire Dunnings. Then came a county board revolt over a 2007 sales tax increase, a signature Stroger initiative. Now comes a Chicago Sun-Times report that the county's No. 1 Tax Man owes $11,668.10 to the IRS.

That's all just in the last month.

There's no shortage of vitriol, accusations and declarations coming from Stroger's friends and enemies in county government and City Hall -- the Claypool/Peraica/Daley brigade. The Horsemen of the Apocalypse are on the stampede.

So where in the world is Toni Preckwinkle? Google doesn't turn up more than a low-key quote here and there. No podium pounding. No fire breathing. No outrage.

What's up with that? Is the media dissing her? I called to ask. Preckwinkle assured me that wasn't the case. The media are calling, she said, but she's not giving them what they want. Her view, she notes, "does not necessarily translate into sound bites, I guess."

Preckwinkle refuses to dwell on the headline of the hour, Stroger's IRS woes. "I think it makes more sense to focus on the substance that relates to President Stroger's tenure in public service than on his private life."

The horsemen are galloping at Stroger's heels. Preckwinkle's mantra is "He's a nice man, but . . . ." Instead, she's quietly conferring with operatives and experts who know the systems well -- from former hospital CEO Sister Sheila Lyne to Cook County Commissioner and Stroger critic Larry Suffredin.

She opts to tick off some "troubling" areas of Stroger's leadership: Major shortcomings in the county's massive heath care system. Chronic overcrowding at Cook County Jail. She waxed on about the "300 million-plus budget hole . . . the budget isn't transparent . . . there are no regular or reliable financial reporting systems at the county's hospitals and clinics."

That's a measured, thoughtful approach. It's also sure to get buried beneath the headlines.

Preckwinkle won't say it, but she may be tiptoeing around Stroger for another reason. She shares his base. While she is going the rainbow route in her multiracial, progressive bid, she must woo black voters who view Stroger as the only advocate for minorities and the poor. To lash out at Stroger when he's down might backfire.

Still, she has to find a way to turn up the heat. We deserve better. The Hyde Park pol represents a welcome progressive strain of black politicians. The Stroger era is kaput. Cook County deserves someone who can bury the incompetent machine hacks once and for all.

We've got an African-American reformer in the White House. Why not one at 118 N. Clark Street?

It's time for Preckwinkle to put her Birkenstock-clad foot squarely on Stroger's throat.