For 20 years Luis Gutierrez has billed himself as a backer of progressive Democratic politics in Chicago. But on March 17 he stunned even his core supporters by endorsing a Republican for town president of Cicero. And not just any old Republican. He backed Ramiro Gonzalez, the candidate handpicked by Ed Vrdolyak, the former Chicago alderman who’s had a big hand in running Cicero Republican politics.
Of course Gutierrez isn’t the first independent politician who got to Congress by joining the machine. Former north-side congressman Sidney Yates did the same thing back in the 1940s. As Yates once explained it, peace with the machine was the price he was willing to pay to pursue a progressive agenda in Congress. Gutierrez offers a similar explanation–and has an equally liberal voting record. The difference is that once Yates got to Congress, he pretty much stayed out of local politics, even during the heated north-side campaigns of the 60s and 70s.
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The problem with Moreno, Gutierrez says, is that he has too many commitments–he’s a lawyer with a Loop-based practice, and he’s a member of the Cook County Board of Commissioners. “I asked Mario, ‘Are you going to close your law practice and are you going to resign from the county board?’” he says. “I feel it’s very important that we have a full-time representative in Cicero. He said he has to keep the law practice open. He said he wants to keep three jobs because he needs to send his kids to college. The motivation of sending your kids to college is an excellent motivation for working. But the motivation for public service is to help other children go to college–to help other children achieve. We have an unfortunate situation where the Democratic nominee is not only double-dipping but triple-dipping. I can’t support that.”
One theory is that Gutierrez is looking for backers so that he can run against Daley for mayor in 2007. “Luis wants to be mayor,” speculates one northwest-side politico who didn’t want to be named. “He’s tired of having to kiss Daley’s ass all the time.”
Why would Daley tell Gutierrez to back Gonzalez–given that Vrdolyak and Daley remain bitter rivals?
According to this theory, Vrdolyak persuaded former 12th Ward alderman Ray Frias to drop out of the runoff and concede the race to George Cardenas, HDO’s candidate. “Vrdolyak and HDO cut a deal, and the net effect is that we got fucked,” says the Moreno camp source. “We were counting on HDO support. But Vrdolyak got Frias to drop out, and in return HDO agreed not to come into Cicero. The idea is that HDO will let Eddie [Vrdolyak] run Cicero for the moment. It’s only a temporary truce. HDO still has its sights on Cicero. They’ll come back in 2005 and run Marty Sandoval [another HDO-aligned politician] against Gonzalez. Luis doesn’t care. He’s such a puppet he’ll do anything for Daley–even if it means getting into bed with Vrdolyak.”
