Jane Byrne voted Chicago mayor

I suppose even the youngest of us has read in the books how a big election can turn on some... some fluke, some triviality, some oddity that has nothing to do with the issues that people are supposed to be voting on.

Old Englishmen and young English students will remember how the General Election of 1924 was affected by the discovery of a letter to English working people supposedly written – I believe it turned out to be a fraud – by one Grigory Zinoviev, a leading Russian communist. 

I believe the biggest howler ever committed by an Englishman in this country, in public that is, was in the presidential election of 1888, when a Californian, who was an American pretending to be an Englishman who'd just been naturalised, wrote to the British minister in Washington. In those dreamy days, Washington didn't rate a British embassy. Well, this fellow wrote and said, as a newcomer, he needed advice, 'Who should he vote for? Mr Harrison or Mr Cleveland?' And Sir Lionel Sackville-West, incredibly, wrote back and said, 'I think Mr Cleveland is the man.' 

Of course the letter was printed in all the papers and for this, and certainly other, reasons, Mr Cleveland was beaten, but, for this alone, Sir Lionel was handed his papers and was on his way back to Kent. 

Well, from now on, since the invention of electronic copying machines, I imagine the incriminating documents will be tapes and not letters. In fact, if I recall correctly, they have been tapes. Nothing quite so dramatic or scandalous has caused a big upset – and to politicians an incredible upset – in Chicago. 

Last Tuesday, Chicago held a primary election for the mayor's job. A couple of candidates from each party, Democratic and Republican, were running against each other for the privilege of contesting the real election in April. However, such is the overwhelming count of Democrats in Chicago, thanks to the assiduous oiling of the Democratic machine for 30 years by the late Mayor Richard Daley, that whoever the Democrats pick is going to be mayor. And, even more than that, such was the vice-like grip or is the grip of the Daley machine on all Democrats that when the Daley candidate wins the Democratic nomination, it's all over. The April election will be a formality. 

Well, you may remember that Mayor Daley died suddenly two years ago and a henchman of his, a hand-picked successor, Michael Bilandic, was voted in as mayor in a special election to serve out Mayor Daley's four-year term. So, last Tuesday was the primary. The Republicans had a colourful couple running against each other, a banker and a professional clown. I am not being cute. I don't mean the second man was a politician, but a genuine, self-respecting circus clown. The banker won, but that is simply for the books. His chances of being the next Mayor of Chicago are slightly less than the chances of Vanessa Redgrave's being the next Prime Minister or Ministress or Prime Person of Great Britain. 

So, last Tuesday, what mattered was the fight between the Daley henchman, Mr Bilandic and any other Democrat who'd had the nerve to try and buck the Daley Democratic machine – and there was such a person. A trim, gutsy, little Irish American called Jane Byrne. A month ago, she was given no glimmer of a hope but then God came to her aid and I do not blaspheme. I'm thinking of the phrase that Mr Bilandic used to describe the appalling 72 inches of snow since the turn of the year. Two weeks ago, you may have heard the city had 36 inches in one fell dump. Now this is too much even for an American city to handle though they've been equipped, ever since the invention of the internal combustion engine, or at least since the electric plough, equipped to handle snowfalls that would paralyse any city in Europe. 

But, they didn't handle it this time. For several days the city couldn't function. The city council couldn't meet. For two days, people were urged to stay home and, to be truthful, they had no choice. Mayor Bilandic deplored it all as an act of God. Mrs Byrne said acts of God were sent to be endured or preferably overcome by acts of man and woman and she said that the delay in getting out all the machines or the failure of the snow ploughs to rid the city of a mere 36 inches was a shame and a scandal. Mayor Bilandic was not overexcited by this tantrum and when his old mother died a week before the election, callous, old professionals assured him that the televising of the funeral would bring out a decisive sympathy vote. 

Now how did Mrs Byrne dare to challenge the Democratic machine? Why did she think she'd have a hope as an independent Democratic running as a reform mayor against the Daley man? Where did she come from? She came from the best possible breeding ground for a reform mayor. She came from the machine. In other words, she's a pro and a dissident. No amateur. She learnt her politics from Mayor Daley himself and was a loyal lieutenant for 20 years. 

Now what this meant to her when she decided to defect was that she knew all the tricks of the trade but could now quote them as outrages against liberty. Chicago is, at all times, a hive of scandal, about voting irregularities in particular. In the 50 years that the Democratic machine has dominated City Hall, there's been constant re-zoning of the election districts to strengthen the machine's hold. 

There've been, from time to time, election agents whose job was to see that the number of people voting democratic did not exceed the actual adult population of a voting district. You think this is not possible? It has happened! When some enthusiast copied down too many names from the tombstones of the cemeteries and found that his chief had been elected both by the quick and the dead. 

Well this time there was... there was nothing quite so charmingly Chicagoan about the election as that, but Mrs Byrne did make a big thing of the fact that more than 200 polling places had been shifted since last November's congressional election. She said this had been done to bewilder the voters, so that her supporters wouldn't know where to register their vote whereas the Bilandic precinct captains would see that Bilandic voters were directed to the proper places. In one polling place, a church, the janitor swore to the board of elections that he'd been offered $30 to lock up the church through the polling hours. 

Still, I'm sure these things will not be gone into now. Mrs Byrne won, and the scramble of the old pros to re-align themselves around her must be an instructive thing to see. You can be sure of one thing. I'll bet on Wednesday morning she had quick, ecstatic telegrams of congratulation from Senator Edward Kennedy, Governor Brown of California and, unless somebody at the White House fumbled, from the president. 

Whoever owns Chicago tends to own a large part of the Illinois vote and Illinois is one of the two or three states that can clinch a presidential election. So, who knows? If the 1888 presidential election turned on a letter to California, how about the 1980 presidential election turning on a Chicago snow storm. Mrs Byrne, needless to say, is the first woman mayor of Chicago, for with the best will in the world and fat contributions given to the Women's Movement, the Daley machine never expected, in a month of nightmares, to be beaten or run by a woman. 

Now, Cleveland... Cleveland is another Midwestern city that brought a rousing surprise to anybody who believes that abolishing taxation is not the best way to stay solvent. Cleveland, you may have heard, has been in crisis in extremis this winter, the second big city to find itself on the verge of bankruptcy. But it came closer than New York ever did, actually defaulting, passing the deadline for paying all the city workers and paying its outstanding bills, including loans. 

Unlike New York, Cleveland did not finagle with Washington or set up a Municipal Assistance Board to take over the deficit. Cleveland saw no hope in simply passing the buck to new corporations and not much more hope in getting a big federal loan which would simply put off the day of judgement, as New York has done. 

Cleveland, through its young mayor, who looks like a wonder boy in some comic strip, Mayor Kucinich, put it up to the voters. His main proposal was an astounding one, especially at a time when there's a rush throughout the states to copy California's Proposition 13 and cut taxes by popular referendum. 

The mayor asked people to go to the polls last Tuesday and vote on whether or not to increase the city income tax in order to pay off the city's debt. I'd better explain, as I constantly do without being believed, that there are – well, there are two cities, there may be one or two more but I haven't heard of them – there's New York City and Cleveland that have a city income tax. Now, we're not talking about rates, which are known here as property taxes, or VAT or utility taxes. The residents of Cleveland, like the residents of New York City, pay, in addition to all those usual rates, taxes, pay three separate, annual, personal income taxes. You'll notice I say this with the emphasis of... of great feeling, being a resident of New York City. 

You pay the national, the federal, income tax of course and then a state income tax – we pay New York State, Cleveland pays an Ohio income tax – and also a city income tax. It's as if somebody listening to me paid in Britain the national income tax and also a Kent income tax and a Rochester income tax. 

Well, the people of Cleveland voted on Tuesday to increase their city income tax by 50 per cent. It seems that not everybody yearns for better schools and hospitals and an end to the slums... provided there are no taxes.

This transcript was typed from a recording of the original BBC broadcast (© BBC) and not copied from an original script. Because of the risk of mishearing, the BBC cannot vouch for its complete accuracy.

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