Twelve years ago today, I wrote my first “Blue State Blues” column. It focused on then-President Barack Obama’s preference for the use (or abuse) of executive power, as opposed to negotiating with Congress.
Obama, I wrote, had developed his political identity in Chicago, and identified strongly with the city’s first black mayor, Harold Washington.
Washington had been elected with support from “progressive” reformers, but once he was in office, he ran into opposition from fellow Democrats, especially the white “ethnic” Democrats who dominated the Chicago political machine and opposed everything he did in the city.
Faced with the “Council Wars,” Washington started exploring the boundaries of his executive authority. He eventually turned the tide against the machine when Luis Gutiérrez — later a Democratic congressman — won a key special election that gave Washington’s reform faction a majority on the council.
But it was too late: Washington died of a heart attack early in his second term, before he could u
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