Chicago Politics

It was 1948 when Abner Mikva, fresh out of college, volunteered at the 8th Ward Democratic headquarters in Chicago. "Who sent you, kid?" the leery ward committeeman asked. "Nobody," Mikva said, and the man informed him, "We don't want nobody nobody sent." That marked the beginning of Abner Mikva's storied political career, which would take him to the Illinois Statehouse, the US House of Representatives, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Clinton White House--culminating in a Presidential Medal of Freedom awarded by a young politician he had mentored, Barack Obama. Around that time, eighty-seven years old and in declining health but as wise and wry as ever, Mikva sat down with his former speechwriter and longtime friend Sanford Horwitt for the first of the conversations recorded in this book. Separated by a generation, but with two lifetimes' worth of experience between them, the friends met monthly to talk about life, politics, and the history that Mikva saw firsthand--and often had a hand in making. Conversations with Abner Mikva lets us listen in as the veteran political reformer and unreconstructed liberal reflects on the world as it was, how it's changed, what it means, and what really matters. Speaking in no uncertain terms, but with an unerring instinct for the comic, Mikva has something to say--and something well worth hearing--about his bouts with the Daley political machine, the NRA, and the Nazis who marched in Skokie. Whether recalling his work as a judge on civil rights, describing his days as White House counsel, decrying the most activist Supreme Court since the Civil War, expounding on our rigged political system, or assessing the Obama presidency, Mikva is eloquent, deeply informed, and endlessly interesting. And finally, in this intimate and unfiltered encounter, he remains an optimist, inspired and inspiring to the very end of a remarkable life of public service. In 2016, at the age of ninety, Abner Mikva died on the Fourth of July.

Between 1908 and 1920, Roger C. Sullivan and his political allies consolidated their control of the Chicago and Illinois Democratic parties, creating the enduring structure known as the "Chicago Democratic machine." Not a personal faction nor tied to any cause, it was a coalition of professional political operatives employing business principles to achieve legal profit and advantage. Sullivan was its chief organizer and first "boss," rising to primacy after many political battles--with William Jennings Bryan, among others--and went on to become a kingmaker who helped Woodrow Wilson win the presidency. By the time of his death, Sullivan was widely respected, his achievements recognized even by those who deplored his politics. Based upon new research, this first comprehensive study of Sullivan and the early days of the Chicago "machine" focuses on the daily realities of the city's politics and the personalities who shaped them.

The personal story of the first African American woman to be elected President of the Cook County Board of Commissioners, Chicago, Illinois.

Barack Obama's inspirational politics and personal mythology have overshadowed his fascinating history. Young Mr. Obama gives us the missing chapter: the portrait of the politician as a young leader, often too ambitious for his own good, but still equipped with a rare ability to inspire change. The route to the White House began on the streets of Chicago's South Side. Edward McClelland, a veteran Chicago journalist, tells the real story of the first black president's political education in the capital of the African American political community. Obama's touch wasn't always golden, and the unflappable and charismatic campaigner we know today nearly derailed his political career with a disastrous run for Congress in 2000. Obama learned from his mistakes, and rebuilt his public persona. Young Mr. Obama is a masterpiece of political reporting, peeling away the audacity, the T-shirts, and the inspiring speeches to craft acompelling and surpassingly readable account of how local politics shaped a national leader.