Disorganized

The 1983 Harold Washington for Mayor campaign may have been the worst organized campaign that ever won.

          There was a downtown office and regional offices, but they often worked independently of one another. In some wards, there was more than one Washington operation.

          There were four of them in the 49th ward. There was Network49 - the political group led by then-Alderman David Orr, people dispatched from the downtown office, those from the regional office, and a group of Rogers Park residents who didn’t report to any of them.

That last group even maintained a “city hall annex” after Washington’s election and Orr had to pressure the Mayor to shut it down.

           Washington campaigners just seemed to do whatever they wanted, as if any activity at all was considered a good thing.

               A 50th ward supporter acted that way in the mayoral general election. He was alarmed about what he thought was a lack of campaigning in his neighborhood and he asked me to help.

                “There’s nothing going on in the ward for Harold,” he exclaimed, determined to get something started.

                “Yes, there is,” I told him, and I named the person who headed the local Washington group. It was someone from the north side, regional office.

                “Oh, well I work with the downtown office,” he said, as if that was a totally different campaign.

                “And there’s nothing going on in the Jewish community,” he lamented.

                “Yes, there is,” I told him, and named the person who was heading that effort.

                He said he didn’t know anything about that.

  I later observed that Washington supporters, before and after his election, seemed to operate without any authority, and simply identified political opportunities they thought would benefit their guy.

  They then reported back to somebody (and it wasn’t always clear to me who that was, or if that person had any authority, either), as if they had emerged from the wilderness clutching what they thought was a valuable catch and hoped somebody might want it.