By the time Bill Wirtz died last fall, his once-proud Chicago Blackhawks had turned into perennial losers playing before dwindling crowds. His son Rocky took over and quickly opened a new era for the team—by repudiating almost everything his old man held dear
Chicago. Grant Park. Election Day. Our behind-the-scenes coverage
Sitting on a small campaign jet during Barack Obama’s 2004 race for the U.S. Senate, I found myself lost in thought. The candidate, dressed in a crisp white shirt and striped tie, sat a few feet in front of me and to the right. I was staring ahead without realizing that I was looking directly at Obama himself, until the aspiring U.S. senator interrupted my rambling thoughts: “Hey, Mendell, what are you looking at?” he asked with a puzzled look…
I didn’t make it into the media pen, and I didn’t get to the party I was supposed to cover in time, so, at about 9:30 p.m., my election night coverage was looking pretty skimpy. Somehow, in all the crowds that were wandering around downtown, I managed to hook up with a few friends on Michigan Avenue, and we decided—wholeheartedly and foolishly—to cut to the center of the “overflow,” that is, the tens of thousands of people who were loitering on the eastern end of Grant Park looking at Jumbotrons and stepping on each other’s feet…
Will Obama create a coattail effect for the rest of the Democratic ticket in Illinois?
The money funding Illinois candidates for the U.S. House doesn’t all come from Illinois
Debra Pickett, Robert Buscemi, K. Tighe, Cornelia Maude Spelman, John Kenzie
In November letters: readers vs. Daley vs. Daley and a South Side view
In the formative stages of Barack Obama’s fame, no topic would make him or his aides more uncomfortable than his personal safety. When I first broached the subject, in July 2004, it was uncharted territory for the then-candidate for the U.S. Senate. Obama had just returned from the Democratic National Convention in Boston, where he had catapulted overnight into the zeitgest of Democrats across the country with his stirring keynote address…
THE AIR UP THERE: His story starts in Englewood, one of Chicago’s most dangerous neighborhoods, where, as an athletic prodigy, he was shielded from harm
