“Scrutiny?” Mayor Richard M. Daley famously asked a gaggle of reporters during the first of his six terms. “What else do you want? Do you want to take my shorts? Give me a break. . . . Go scrutinize yourself! I get scrootened every day, don’t worry, from each and every one of you.”
Yesterday it was reported that the late mayor suffered a minor stroke. He’s back home, his family said. This is the first I’ve heard about Daley, a noisy and ubiquitous presence for the first two decades of my life in Chicago, in years.
How do you enjoy that much fame or suffer that much notoriety—and just disappear, as Mayor Daley has over the last 15 years of his life. It’s actually a question I asked when Daley left office, in a piece for the Chicago Reader titled, “Postmayoral Advice for Daley.” For that piece, I spoke with a bunch of former Chicago and Illinois pols, who admitted they struggled in exile.
“It’s hard to let go of power, to voluntarily step aside,” former Illinois Governor Jim Edgar told me. “Life goes on without you, though it’s hard to believe it can. You’re not in the center anymore. People are not rushing to you to get your opinion. Your successor does things differently, and you take it personally.”
Former Illinois Attorney General and U.S. Senator Roland Burris said he was bewildered, watching C-SPAN. “It’s as if you were never there,” he told me, confessing that every morning he had to tell himself, “You’ve gotta get up and get going.”
Former Chicago Mayor Jane Byrne told me she never really retired from Chicago politics, and still considered herself a player, citing as an example her public objection to Daley’s overnight demolition of Meigs Field in 2003. “Do I just sit in the corner? No. I am watching everything.” How did she think Daley would handle being out of power? “I think it’s going to be very hard for him,” she said.
I thought so too, honestly. I had some public dealings with Daley’s administration, but the only time I saw Daley in person was when he showed up to throw out the first pitch at a little league baseball game. Far from the often blustery figure he seemed at press conferences, he seemed weirdly shy and a little awkward—but also palpably, bashfully happy to be, as he would put it, “Da Mare Chicago.” Happier, far happier, than any of his successors have ever seemed to be.
A lot of people would say Daley’s been so quiet in these intervening years because he had a lot—especially some insanely scandalous financial moves he made during his last term—to be quiet about.
But I marvel at his silence, still. And at the silence of anyone who has become used to having their voice heard. Maybe I’ll write about people like that next. Speaking of Richard, where has Simmons been all these years …
