Chicago rallies to put best face forward
It didn't appear on television, but one of the indelible images from Tuesday's Obama election rally in Grant Park found revelers gathering afterward around the statue of Civil War Gen. John A. Logan - the site of one of the more infamous confrontations between protesters and police at the 1968 Democratic Convention.
What a difference 40 years - and winning an election - can make.
Chicago was on its best behavior Tuesday night, and the city looked splendid, placed in a starring role on CNN and other news channels. To be sure, much of it was canned and planned. As someone who was there, I have to insist that the 70,000 or so Obama supporters in Hutchinson Field were used mainly as a prop for the TV production. They were off to the side, looking on from a distance, while it seemed it was mainly the big-money contributors who got to actually surround the stage when Sen. Barack Obama made his victory speech as president-elect.
Yet there's no denying the passion for the candidate was genuine, as was the feeling of being present at a moment in history. Maybe the throngs ringing the elevated banks of what is usually a softball field couldn't hear the actual speech too well, but they could see it, and they certainly looked great on television.
Give Mayor Daley credit. He didn't discourage people from coming down, but actively encouraged them, suggesting they could show up 1 million strong. In actuality, an estimated 250,000 or so made it downtown to Grant Park, but they showed up celebrating without a hint of conflict. The overflow crowd watching on giant-screen TVs in Butler Field to the north, on the other side of Buckingham Fountain, might just have found the most festive place in town to watch the election returns.
Give credit too to Chicago's finest, who opened the gates to the event early, about 3:30 p.m., when the lines were just beginning to spill out to Michigan Avenue at its intersection with Congress Parkway. Ticketholders had to wait an additional three hours to 6:30 to get into the rally proper, but that was away from the busy streets and still well ahead of the advertised 8:30 opening. Mellower crowds of those without tickets milled and watched TV in Butler Field.
Police were also tolerant of the red-hot market for T-shirts and buttons sold by street vendors on every corner. And my other enduring image of the evening, again away from the TV cameras, was of three officers on horseback and a group of teenagers sharing the sidewalk as they walked along Michigan Avenue after midnight. The teens admired the beauty of the horses and congratulated the cops on them, while chiding them not to tread them underfoot.
Winning changes everything, doesn't it? Yet it wasn't this peaceful after the Bulls' NBA championships.
It didn't hurt that Tuesday's weather was glorious. Behind the stage where Obama was to speak, six spotlights slanted into a cloudless sky and people could stand with their coats open in the field until it got just a little chilly later on; by then, the energy from the impending Obama victory speech was enough to keep all warm. The weather probably won't be as good for the Summer Olympics should the city succeed in bringing them here in 2016.
I can even testify that, at 1 a.m., there was an abundance of smoothly running CTA trains, on both the subway and elevated lines.
Maybe this city is ready to play host to the Olympics after all - that is, if President Obama can make it to the opening and closing ceremonies.