Give Stroger credit for reaching out

Comic actor and director Woody Allen once said, "Eighty percent of success is showing up."

Whatever your views of Cook County Board President Todd Stroger, you have to give him that. He showed up in the suburbs Monday night, and it's amazing how much power rested in that simple exercise.

As anyone who reads this space surely knows, we have had considerable differences with Stroger in the past.

We still do, as a matter of fact.

But all that said, we do appreciate the effort he made, the attempt to reach out to the suburbs when it would have been just as easy -- easier in fact -- to sit cloistered in his office in Chicago.

Keep in mind, in the sense of public service, the suburbs are part of his constituency. But in the sense of electability, they are not.

His base is in Chicago; that's what elected him to office in 2006 while the suburban voters question his seeming entitlement to succeed his father. And that's what will elect him again in the future.

No, politics didn't bring him to Harper College in Palatine for Monday night's town hall exchange. There was nothing in it for him from the political standpoint.

We have to give credit where credit is due. We think he came out because he saw the outreach as part of his job. For all of our criticism of him, we think he's trying to do right by his job. And that on Monday night, he was trying to be a leader.

It wasn't an easy crowd, as Stroger had to know driving out.

About 250 residents, business leaders and local politicians listened to what he had to say. Many of them took the opportunity, in blunt language, to express their frustrations with county government to Stroger.

"I think everyone in this room feels like one of the things they can't control is your board," Schaumburg business owner Jeff Milstein told Stroger, adding later, "I don't trust you guys, and that's a major problem as a person who invests money in the county and pays people's salaries. I feel completely disenfranchised."

Through it all, Stroger listened and politely responded. It couldn't have been comfortable.

The real test, of course, will be how well did he listen. Was his objective to present his case and then be polite? Or was his objective to try to get a better sense of the concerns and frustrations in the suburbs? Was he really listening?

We hope he was.

We hope Monday's meeting was the beginning of a dialogue Stroger tries to develop with the suburbs. We hope he seizes on this moment to try to turn a negative into a positive, that he uses this moment as the first step of engaging the suburbs in the democracy.

Yes, 80 percent of success is showing up.

The other 20 percent is following up.