Wrench
Illinois Gov. Dan Walker (D) 1973-1977
He campaigned as the personification of a wrench, throwing himself into the Chicago (Richard Daley) Political Machine.
"In my case I wanted the power for a very simple and distinct reason: to defeat a political machine and thereby remake my party to what it started out being - in the time of Jackson - a people party not a boss party," Governor Walker recalled.
He first learned of the Daley Machine in 1952 while working precincts to drum up votes for presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson. He said he witnessed voter fraud, bribery and what became known as "voting the graveyard."
His pedigree is impressive. He graduated at the top of his class from Northwestern University's School of Law and served as a Law Clerk for Supreme Court Chief Justice Fred Vinson. After college He did two tours of Duty in the Navy, and eventually accepted an offer to become Vice President of General Counsel for national retailer Montgomery Ward.
"I thought about the possibility of some day becoming a public official, when I was in my teens. If you want to call it the germination of the ambition, it began then. I would go to law school and become a high public official. It was ordained - that was what I was going to do. I never really thought of myself as a legislator, I was not of that ilk.”
(the entire Gov. Walker chapter is be available by contacting the author: [email protected])
He campaigned as the personification of a wrench, throwing himself into the Chicago (Richard Daley) Political Machine.
"In my case I wanted the power for a very simple and distinct reason: to defeat a political machine and thereby remake my party to what it started out being - in the time of Jackson - a people party not a boss party," Governor Walker recalled.
He first learned of the Daley Machine in 1952 while working precincts to drum up votes for presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson. He said he witnessed voter fraud, bribery and what became known as "voting the graveyard."
His pedigree is impressive. He graduated at the top of his class from Northwestern University's School of Law and served as a Law Clerk for Supreme Court Chief Justice Fred Vinson. After college He did two tours of Duty in the Navy, and eventually accepted an offer to become Vice President of General Counsel for national retailer Montgomery Ward.
"I thought about the possibility of some day becoming a public official, when I was in my teens. If you want to call it the germination of the ambition, it began then. I would go to law school and become a high public official. It was ordained - that was what I was going to do. I never really thought of myself as a legislator, I was not of that ilk.”
(the entire Gov. Walker chapter is be available by contacting the author: [email protected])