With presidential politics behind them, Illinois' top two politicians, Mayor Richard M. Daley and Gov. George Ryan, are back to doing what they do best. Making deals. With each other.
National elections force guys like Daley and Ryan to be more partisan than they really want to be. Daley, a Bill Clinton stalwart who benefited greatly from the Bubba years, didn't waste time criticizing the outgoing president for his endless farewell tour. Now he can't cozy up to George W. Bush fast enough.
Maybe that's just good politics. Big-city mayors need good relations with Washington, no matter who's in office, and Daley has some fence-mending to do after his brother Bill went toe-to-toe with the Bush boys in Florida.
And for his part, Ryan, a diehard Republican, is the best Democratic governor we've had in years. Illinois First, Ryan's brainchild, is a $12 billion tax-and-spend public works program that would make even the most liberal lawmaker blush. And I'd wager that smoking cigars with Fidel Castro and halting state executions weren't on the state GOP's Top 10 "must do" list.
Daley and Ryan have plenty to talk about, but they could fill several bull sessions just talking about airports. With a Republican in the White House, the prospects for a regional airport located in Peotone and beyond Daley's control have found new life. And this time, with the public all too aware of delays and safety concerns at O'Hare International Airport, something's got to give.
There's much speculation that Daley will drop his opposition to Peotone in return for more runways at O'Hare, and that George Ryan is just the guy who can make that happen. But standing in the way of that classic political deal is, well, politics.
If Ryan agrees to O'Hare expansion, he'll hear about it from suburban Republicans who believed him when he promised not to horse-trade on the airport issue. Of course, the party faithful haven't been doing the governor any favors lately. Ryan has been haunted by the licenses-for-bribes scandal since before he took office, and some Republicans are grumbling that he isn't re-electable. Despite his accomplishments, they think the governor should step aside for Attorney General Jim Ryan.
So, while an airport deal might be in everyone's best interest, it could spell political doom for the governor. That could give Democrats the best chance they've had in years to win the Governor's Mansion.
As for Daley, he can afford to give up Peotone to get what he wants at O'Hare. He just doesn't want to. But he'd also rather have Ryan in the governor's office than some Democrat who might get the crazy notion that he's more important than the mayor of Chicago.
Daley likes Ryan, and he doesn't really mind having a Republican in Springfield, so long as it's not Jim Edgar. The former governor just wasn't a wheelin' and dealin' kind of guy, and he and Daley couldn't agree on anything. And what they couldn't agree on most were airports.
Remember the mayor's plan to build the third airport at Lake Calumet? That's okay, no one else does either. Daley abandoned the project when Edgar and the General Assembly balked at paying for it. Then Edgar came up with the Peotone site, and Daley used his pull with Clinton to put exploratory funding for the site on the federal back burner. Later, when Edgar and his GOP buddies tried to take control of O'Hare, Daley countered by forming a wacky airport alliance with Gary, Ind.
Further, Daley and Edgar fought to a stalemate over the future of Meigs Field, with the governor winning a reprieve for the lakefront airport, which the mayor is determined to turn into a park. That agreement expires next year and could be part of the mix in the Peotone-O'Hare discussions.
So let's hope Ryan and Daley can cut an airport deal before the pressures of the governor's race make everyone too political to make a bold move.
The rest of us can only sit around and wait for something to happen. And if we happen to be passing through O'Hare, we'll have plenty of time for that.
James Ylisela Jr. is the editor of Clout, a new urban affairs magazine in Chicago that will debut later this year.
