Roadmap

Mayor Shortshanks' announcement that he's not going to run again has indeed set Chicago's newsies on their collective ears. After all...

Next year Chicagoans will face what for most of them is a lifetime first — a mayoral election without an incumbent candidate. That hasn't occurred since 1947.

That is, indeed a big deal in a town where for years the only way out of the mayoral office has been to be voted out or to croak on the job.

I've always had mixed feelings about Daley because he clearly loves the city and has done a ton to improve it and make it livable on the one hand, but his fiscal acumen is lousy and he's always been tainted by bad judgments in his associates and in his land and power grabs on the other. See? There's very good reason for my ambivalence.

Now businesses, theater organizations and leaders in the Chicago music scene all have reasons for concern about Da Mair's successor and are scurrying to protect their interests.

Personally, I think we're going to see a hell of a lot of interesting signs along the way to the next elections. I predict a sea change in Illinois politics and governance.