RAHM EMANUEL AND ELECTRONIC TESTING: GOOD GOVERNMENT REALLY IS GOOD POLITICS, EH?

10/24/14

City of Chicago Human Resources Director Soo Choi said Thursday that she wants to convert all tests for city jobs from paper exams to electronic exams.  This is being touted by the Emanuel administration’s toadies in the media as a sharp blow for fairness, against corruption and the evils of patronage.  (See my nearly instantly seminal comments on patronage and its effect on governance, PATRONAGE, THE SHAKMAN DECREE, THE CITY THATONCE WORKED…AND DAVID COPPERFIELD, published 6/16/14 at Rant Lifestyle.) 
In its eagerness to embrace the veneer of reform, the local cheering section for Rahm Emanuel that calls itself the City Hall press corps has it wrong.  Mr. Emanuel’s plan to replace paper tests with electronic tests is not a blow for clean government but, rather, a concession to the modern reality of politics and yet another move to drop the peanuts and grab the golden nuggets.
The precinct captains and the armies of patronage workers of which they were once part are effectively dead as devices for getting out the vote and winning elections.   Federal pressure, largely in the form of Shakman enforcement, has made disciplining the troops nearly impossible.  Maybe more importantly, voters are too busy (Some gullible types say too informed, but that is another issue.) or insouciant to take the time to listen to their neighbors’ pitches for candidates.  The modern voter, even in the remaining supposedly Machine bastions, decides how to vote based on idiotic 30 second ads that interrupt his or her nightly viewing of the schlock we call prime time television.  Over the last 30 or 40 years, the television has steadily replaced the ward organization as the key to winning elections; the television is the new precinct captain and has been for years.   Some of us think this is not an entirely favorable development (See the aforementioned post.), but I digress.
The precinct captain can’t do the pols much good, so why bother fighting Shakman and other federal attacks on patronage?   Why not go the good government route and make moves, such as replacing paper exams with electronic tests, that will further wow the already completely in the tank press and, more importantly, yield an enormous dividend itself?  
What is the dividend this latest goo-goo maneuver will yield?  The electronic tests will involve millions of dollars in contracts for consultants, vendors, lawyers, facilitators and God only knows who else.  Do you suppose that those on the receiving end of this largesse will not show their gratitude by making generous contributions to the various political funds of the mayor and his minions?   If you don’t suppose so, you are hopelessly naïve; make no mistake; something is expected from those who do business with the city, and such expectations, of course, didn’t start with Rahm Emanuel.
Why bother defending patronage when it is impotent in the modern political era?  Why not actually join the fight against it when doing so can generate the money that can be used to buy the inane 30 second ads (and employ relatives, friends, and other hangers-on in the political apparati) that actually win elections in this era of the frighteningly low information voter?

See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for further illumination on how things work in Chicago and Illinois politics.