I grew up in Chicago in the 1960s and 70s, when Chicago was still the city of big shoulders and hog butcher to the world, organized labor was organized and did labor, and the first Mayor Richard Daley ruled the city like a personal fiefdom. Chicago politics back then was when barrel-chested strongmen wielded truncheons  on political opponents, then went home to shower, shave, and don a tuxedo to attend a $500 a plate dinner with the President or Senator. It was connections that counted, and your loyalty to those connections. They had a saying then: we don't want nobody nobody sent.

When Obama was doing his street organizing in Chicago, local politics was rapidly changing, becoming less thuggish and more open, the city was reeling from sustained depression of its many manufacturing sectors, while the traders in the futures pits at the Merc and the Board of Trade were just beginning their quiet ascent to covert dominance of the equity and bond markets.

Now, I suppose, the saying in Chicago is, it ain't over til it's over.