My Dad always said, " The only people to smoke a corncob pipe were Dugout Doug MacArthur, Walkin' Dan Walker and Granny Clampett; two were creeps and one a pretend Hillbilly."
Image and Substance matter. A man in work clothes should be doing tough manual labor, otherwise it is only make-believe dress-up time.
The late Dan Walker was the very model of modern preening politician of both political parties. Props and sound bytes and compelling narratives turned Walker into the Populist Progressive Democrat, now all the rage. Dan Walker set the table for political grifters like Forrest Claypool, Mike Quigley, Jan Schakowsky, Rod Blagojevich, and GOP darlings like Bruce Rauner, Aaron Schock and Senator Marque Kirque. These types who " . . .shout and scream, I'll kill the king, I'll rail at all his servants" and drink deeply from the public trough. Colorful Populists have never been my cup of strychnine.
Dan Walker belongs to the ages.
The ages had their advent when Dan Walker put on his costume
Image and substance? They only match up when deeds glue them together,
Dan Walker was a talented man, a WASP princeling, an Annapolis 'ring-knocker' and shameless opportunist who litigated against organized labor as counsel for Montgomery Ward, or smeared cops with broadest of social engineering brushes, or used First American Savings and Loan as his personal piggy bank with equal relish and entitlement.
Dan Walker donned blue denin, work-boots, clenched a foot-long corn cob pipe in his magnificently maintained teeth, grew his hair to Bobby Kennedy lengths, tied a Howdy Doody bandanna around his windpipe and gave the people of Illinois their first taste of political bullshit - and they swallowed it ever since 1972.
1972 marked the end of the Democratic Party when it was high jacked by Abner Mikva, Patricia Harris, Bill Singer and America's foremost grifter adept - Jesse Jackson. Cook County delegates elected by the people of Cook County were uncommitted to any candidate. George McGovern and Patricia Harris encouraged the looting of delegates, which also set the table Michael Shakman's destruction of the Cook County Democratic Party and his reaping of millions of dollars through Shakman Decrees.
Walker wrote the script for every grifter who wanted a place at the public trough with words like Reform, Machine, Boss and Change. Richard J. Daley was a competent, hard-wrking, ruthless and loyal public servant and he never heard the iron bars close his day. Walker has and so have many other Populist Reformer Firebrand Change Agents.
Dan Walker's costumed jaunt of 1,197 miles trough Illinois resonated with Illini who read little, but pray " They are All Crooks!" like it was the Memorare. Folks narrowly gave Walker his opportunities and have continued to swallow tons of bullshit, organic, whole, and very Green. One term and everything was changed by Magic Dan Walker.
I never acquired the taste.
Dan Walker belongs to the ages . . .and that ain't necessarily a good thing.
