Joe Moore: Like Rodney Dangerfield

Chicago's 49th Ward Alderman Joe Moore is an incompetent, discredited political hack, a joke locally and internationally. Best known outside of Chicago for his anti-goose liver legislation, he is the butt of jokes worldwide. The incoming Obama Administration seems to be signalling that they are well aware of this. While other local politicians are being tapped for plum positions within the Obama Administration, Moore sits in his crappy ward office making frantic calls, begging Obama's people to get him the hell out of Rogers Park. Moore has been the 49th Ward's guy in the City Clowncil for over 17 years. During that time, the 49th has gone from bad to bad, with a handful of businesses coming in but a drove of them leaving or failing. The mythical "streetscapes" of Howard Street and Morse Avenue are yet to happen, although Moore has been telling people for years now that the projects are imminent. Shootings are still commonplace along W. Morse Avenue and in the "North of Howard" section, but Moore and his sycophants deny this reality. While the media focuses on the wild west style shootings of nearby Uptown, Rogers Park actually has more shootings per year - they're just not as spectacular. Every night, prostitutes sell their wares right outside of Moore's ward office at Jarvis and Greenview (Moore lives only two blocks away, but drives to work every day). While Moore sucks up to CTA chief Ron Huberman by gushing over the renovation of the Howard CTA station, Moore ignores the Jarvis and Morse stations, where commuters must dodge pigeon crap at the entrances, step over human feces and puddles of urine in the stairwells, and worry about narcotics trafficking inside and outside of the stations. In April, 2007, Moore stole a victory in a tight run-off election. Oh yes, there were witnesses to that box of ballots that went missing for a couple of hours. Oh, indeed, we have a photo of Moore with his hand on the shoulder of an old woman as she is voting. You betcha, Moore's thugs lied through their teeth to voters and maliciously misrepresented Moore's opponent, Don Gordon, as a racist. Although these are typically tactics of Democrat politicians, the Democrat National Committee (DNC) lost all respect for Moore because he did them so sloppily. Moore has no sense of decorum, no finesse, no style, no grace. He's a lumbering, clumsy schmuck who outspent a political amateur by 8-to-1, over a million dollars of DNC money blown, and he "won" with approximately 250 (stolen) votes. You can't respect a putz like that, and the Obama-controlled DNC looks at Moore as an oaf, a liability, an embarrassment. Over the past eight months, Moore spent more time campaigning for Obama than he spent on issues needing attention in his 49th Ward. When he does attend to his ward, he is ineffective even with pot hole repair because the brass in Streets and Sanitation can't stand him. He wastes many hours every week with meaningless issues meant only to distract from the crime and blight. His "Green Corps" fantasy, for example, is a distraction. Does Moore really believe that free seminars on mulching will improve the daily routine for his subjects? Moore gives his constituents bread and circuses to take their minds of the fact that he has done nothing to improve the jobs situation in Rogers Park, although he's had 17 years to do something about it. So, Obama had a magnificent victory. A number of Chicago area Democrats will be plucked out of their current positions and uplifted to better ones in Washington or elsewhere, anointed by Barack Obama. That's cool - it's how the game is played. But one of the rules of the game, whether Democrat or Republican, is that you elevate the doers, the accomplishers, the smartest folks you know. Moore is none of those things. Barack Obama knows that, Rahm Emanuel knows that, Joe Moore's estranged personal attorney knows that, most folks in the 49th Ward know it, everyone at the DNC knows it. Moore cannot rest on his laurels, for he has none.