I have a lot in common with Barack Obama. I was born about 10 months after Obama. Like Obama, I was a child raised by a single mother after being abandoned by a foreign father. Like Obama, my mother was briefly on welfare while raising me and going to school. Like Obama, I happened to end up making my career in Chicago. Like Obama, I moved to Chicago in the mid-1980s, during the height of the Chicago Council Wars. And I similarly became interested in politics.
Council Wars was a reaction to the shock of a black man being elected mayor of Chicago. As it turned out, the Washington regime in Chicago was probably the most significant event in bringing Chicago into the late 20th Century.
Finley Peter Dunne, the Chicago humorist and author famously coined the phrase, "Politics Ain’t Beanbag," meaning that politics isn’t a harmless children’s game where nobody gets hurt. People living in Chicago during the Council Wars period could never possibly mistake politics for a children’s game.