CAMPAIGN 2007: CHICAGO'S 7TH WARD
Let's play the family feud
William Beavers, Rep. Jesse Jackson vie for S. Side supremacy through relatives' aldermanic race
By Dan Mihalopoulos
Tribune staff reporter
Published February 23, 2007
Inside the 7th Ward Democratic offices, local boss William Beavers told his campaign workers they are the key to yet another "precinct captains' election" on Chicago's South Side.
"You win it like we're doing it here, the old-fashioned way, putting people on the streets," he said, lighting a Pall Mall cigarette as soon as his men left with glossy pamphlets of his daughter Ald. Darcel Beavers standing alongside Mayor Richard Daley.
Stepping out the door, the 7th Ward workers saw the enemy to their right and left. Within a couple blocks of the ward office in each direction stand two of the ubiquitous billboards featuring Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) and his wife, Sandi Jackson.
Darcel Beavers, Sandi Jackson and two little-known candidates are vying for 7th Ward alderman on Tuesday's ballot.
But the election is more of a proxy battle for South Side political primacy--and a test of whether Jesse Jackson Jr. can take the first steps toward becoming a true Chicago power broker.
After months of threatening to run against Daley, the congressman shied away after seeing internal poll numbers showing he would lose. Instead, he is taking on one of the mayor's closest black allies.
"They've never seen this kind of campaign before," Jesse Jackson Jr. said of the Beavers organization.
If Sandi Jackson succeeds, the Jacksons would have a day-to-day presence in a council that the congressman calls incapable of "providing the necessary debate on the issues." And Jackson Jr. would add a building block to his dreams of positioning himself for a post-Daley future as mayor.
Attacks mayor for 2 years
About two years ago, he began speaking out more on City Hall issues, sharply criticizing the mayor. The son of Rev. Jesse Jackson talked boldly of creating a new local political power structure. The ideal start, he said, would see him head a slate of candidates for city clerk, city treasurer and about 15 council seats.
That didn't happen. Besides his wife, Jackson Jr. has provided significant backing to just one other council challenger, his former aide Kenny Johnson in the 2nd Ward.
The demise of Jackson Jr.'s broader plans left him holding the rights to 1,800 billboards--worth about $400,000--across the city. He had hoped to use them to promote his ticket, but kept his claim only to those that would be useful to Sandi Jackson and a few friendly council candidates.
Sandi and Jesse Jackson Jr. now appear on virtually every billboard in an area bounded by Stony Island Avenue, 67th Street, 106th Street and Lake Michigan.
The scene for the 7th Ward race was set when William Beavers left the City Council last year to replace John Stroger on the Cook County Board. Daley appointed Darcel Beavers to finish her father's term. Railing against political legacies, 43-year-old Sandi Jackson soon announced she would make her first run as a candidate in her husband's hometown.
The Jacksons deride the Beaverses as remnants of City Hall's machine past who gratefully accept whatever Daley can spare for their underdeveloped ward by the lake.
The Beaverses respond that the Jacksons are interlopers whose proper place is in Washington, D.C. They shrug off the Jacksons' complaints about crime in the ward, suggesting that the congressman and his wife are too frightened to walk around their own neighborhood.
William Beavers is unimpressed by all the billboards, the mailers, the phone banks and the campaign manager and other professional staffers imported from Washington.
Jesse Jackson Jr. has invested more than $200,000 into his wife's campaign, state records show.
"He's trying to buy an election, but he can't," William Beavers said.
Williams Beavers is perhaps the city's most outspoken defender of political nepotism and dealmaking in what he calls "smoke-filled rooms." He has decried a federal investigation into city hiring fraud and declared political patronage the best way to conduct hiring for public jobs. He boasts of his role in Todd Stroger's election as County Board president after Stroger's father suffered a stroke.
Daughter takes after dad
Darcel Beavers, 47, said she is proud to succeed her father. She describes herself as more soft-spoken than her father, a former police officer.
"But I also have my dad in me, and I'm not going to let anyone step on me," she said. "He is a strong black man. He says what he means to say. Some people don't like that he's frank, but you don't ever have to wonder where he's coming from. People respect him for that.
"These are average, working people in the 7th Ward. They can detect phoniness."
Darcel Beavers, who is single, said Sandi Jackson is masquerading as a South Sider when her family's real home is the Washington townhouse pictured in the pamplet. Sandi Jackson, who was born in Ohio, works for the Democratic National Committee and sends her 6-year-old daughter to school in Washington.
At his office on East 79th Street last Saturday morning, William Beavers instructed campaign workers to tell voters Sandi Jackson "doesn't live here." He then introduced his daughter.
"I live right around the corner," Darcel Beavers said.
The carpet-bagging charges are meant to deflect attention from William Beavers' poor record, Sandi Jackson responded. She said the 7th Ward's lakefront community is neglected, prime turf for commercial development.
She said she is incensed that she has to leave her ward to make a coffee stop at Starbucks, which she and her staff do twice a day. People in the ward want that kind of business in their neighborhood, she said.
Instead, she said, the business districts along 75th and 79th Streets decay, while drug deals take place "right in front of the aldermanic office in broad daylight."
In the earnest, practiced tones of a debate champion, Sandi Jackson talks of how the South Side has been underserved by a Daley administration focused on glimmering downtown tourist attractions.
"I'd like to see more equitable distribution of that largesse," she said.
Works behind the scenes
Sandi Jackson has a law degree and has worked behind the scenes for national and local politicians for years. She refers to those experiences when a woman in front of a grocery store asks what she has done to deserve her vote.
"If anything, I might be overqualified," Sandi Jackson answered. "This ward needs someone who has been outside the box and can think outside the box."
Also on the ballot are Chicago Police Officer Ronald David, 49, and city worker Eric Brown, 53.
In a series of candidate debates, David has contended his beat-cop experience makes him the real ward expert.
But the real battle for control of the ward is reflected in an ongoing cat-and-mouse game at 71st Street and South Shore Drive.
Last Saturday afternoon, the alderman's Streets and Sanitation superintendent removed Sandi Jackson signs from lampposts there, noting that they are forbidden on city property. By Monday morning, new signs were up in the same spots.
William Beavers shook his head.
"We're going to have to write some tickets then."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-0702230095feb23,1,6194707.story?page=1&coll=chi-politics-stories
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