i admire a great deal. is a former arch bishop emeritus in seven cisco. >> let us know what you read in the summer. tweet us and booktv. posted on a facebook page or send us an e-mail at booktv@c-span.org. >> now, walter jacobson, author of "walter's perspective: a memoir of fifty years in chicago tv news," and keith koeneman, author of "first son: the biography of richard m. daley," talk about their books. this event was part of the 2013 "chicago tribune" printer's row lit fest it. >> walter, what compelled you or who compelled you to tell, most of the people on television have made so much money that they can just go up and do nothing. you write this book for money, he wasn't always was in television one of the best

writers and we don't always associate television with good writing, especially in local news. but you always were a good writer but he wrote in the short form a perspective, what compelled you to tell your story? >> i had, rick, no idea that writing the book. never have thought about doing it. of course, never have tried to do it. when i retired maybe five years ago for the first time -- >> he's like the michael jordan of local television broadcasting. [laughter] >> my retirement is often compulsory. as the hair gets a greater, the less management wants to be part of the team. but the first time i retired i was ready to retire but it was after about 45 years in the business, and i just went off thinking about myself. i had been under so many years of such severe deadlines that i never had a chance to even think about what i was really doing to myself and what i did, and, for others to know.

the more i just thought about it, the more i kind of took notes about things. my memory came back and i went over things that i've done in my career since i was very young. started in 1963, and as i continued to write my notes, i felt that maybe try putting into the book. my book is not a look like yours is, or others, royko for example, orlando gone. it's not a look at chicago politics. it's an inside story about my 50 years of the business. i would describe it, rick, as a lethargic experience that turned into print. >> one of the things about this book is it is very sharp eyed, and sharp tongued about the changes in the business of news. you do not pull any punches here, walter. explain to these people who will buy your book and roughly 40 minutes -- [laughter] what, those changes have not been for the best, have a?

>> they have gone up and down. there have been times when the changes have been positive, technically of course very positive. the things that are in television news now are not things that we were even dreaming of doing back then. and on the other hand, i don't want to be too critical because it's been my life for 50 years of budget of some strong, strong feelings about how television news, particularly local television news focuses too much on the sad side of stories. and every night when you turn on the news at 10:00 and you see another drive-by shooting, it gets kind of tiresome for a while and doesn't make a point. we don't have time -- at least that's what i've been told, you cannot take the time to tell a story that ought to be told any kind of depth. that's the series change. too much sex in hollywood stars and famous people who come through town, and most people these days i would just turn on television, want to get what the

weather is because they're not getting in substance it information to the weather and the sports. that parking is very sad and i see that getting worse. >> drawing boldly into this thing, it occurs to me that most of us who watch television and pay attention to chicago politics, that the people in chicago politics are in the main, mostly defined by the images that are projected through television. nobody, no one i know, and i doubt if any of you read the seven pages of the parking contract, yes, no? [laughter] >> i have. >> i bet you have. [laughter] but is that true? the image of richard m. daley is to my mind of eu image spent i think that's very true. walter, a great little story in his book about when he asked him to do an exclusive and he took

it out in his car and she put a camera on the front of the car and sort of tour through the city. and then he talked about his use of the neighbor. i think the reason, you agreed that he agreed to do that because he wanted the pictures on tv. so i think pictures can be very powerful. and i think some politicians, such as daley, are pretty skillful about what image they project on -- >> what about managing the media and managing the image speak with one thing interesting about richard daley, is his career became less smooth about talking in public and if he did it on purpose. i've seen videos of him when he was states attorney back in the 1980s when he is giving speeches and they're actually very good speeches, very thoughtful. is quite eloquent. then you see some pictures of him later in his mayoral career is quite -- i think it was a bit

of a shtick. if someone asks you a really tough question and give them like sort of -- answer, then your feet are not held to the fire. so i think he actually in a very, a very savvy way sort of in public portrayed himself as being less smart and tough-minded than he was in private. >> what do you think about that, walter? >> as a journalist you have to learn a few tricks about to get somebody like daley, who is really a rather shy guy, and not very interested in talking to the media, not trusting of the media as his father was, not trusting as well, we have to learn how to guide them into a situation in a way that will let him think that we will give his side of the story. when i called to ask if i could ride around town with rich, i was told absolutely not. then when i said he has everything to gain because, as you say, the image was there.

if i don't use the time to nail him, well, getting in the car and i can worry about nailing him once he's in and can't get out. [laughter] so my approach was, look, i haven't seen on television talking but your neighbor to come you always talk about your neighbors. that's what's important to you, sir right around and i'll let about in any way you want. and i should say, it's really important for reporter to always understand that the id is not too bright or get on television something about the reporter, or even how the reporter does it. they give the guy a chance to talk for better or for worse. let them say whatever he wants to say. in all my interviews over my use, like john wayne casey for example, go to death row and talk to the man, he wants to say he is in a. innocent. i don't really care about what he says. i want to hear what he thinks about what he is going to say. that's what we apply taken

interviews with the mayor. the same with rahm emanuel although he is the most difficult. >> we will get to him shortly. [laughter] keith, you offered richard m. daley the chance to speak on the record about his wife ingrid and he turned you down. on some of us disappointment, can be a surprise to, was? >> it wasn't a surprise. i hope he would chat with me, that when you think it through i do think is a very savvy man, a very savvy politician. sort of richard nixon used to talk, sort of about plausible deniability. there was no upside in talking to me. if he would've talked to me and i wrote a book that he didn't like, then it would be hard for him to say, well, i don't like this book. were as if i wrote a book he didn't like and he never talked to me, he could to i don't even know the guy, i don't like his s book. i think you wanted to reserve

the right to say he didn't like the book. >> what he said? >> he has said nothing publicly. [laughter] >> what do you hear? >> i've heard nothing official. unofficially, both have come to talks like this and i bought my book and asked me to sign. so no one is throwing eggs at me so that's good. >> has anybody asked you to sign it to rich? >> no, no. they have not. >> if any of you have an entrée to rich daley, think about that. walter, compared because this is a rare opportunity for you people to compare father and son here for me. >> oh, boy, that's a tough one. i think that basically they are incomparable. their motivations, their visions were entirely different. and the times are so different. the father, father wanted and

needed to control everything from the processes of government to the workings inside the democratic party. the sun understood that that led to a lot of really bad publicity for the older guy. and took a step away from the into workings of democratic party the he was never chairman of the party, for example. his dad was. rich daley, the young one, didn't do as much politics as you know of course that the older one day. but in terms of expressing themselves, i think there was some similarity. in terms of their love for the city, and i really believe it, they were the same. they really did care. both of them really cared. they were not as interested simultaneously, or comparatively, in how the government operated as they were in getting things done for the city. i think that's a fair thing to say but i'm always kind of hesitate to be too quick with judgments on them because i want

to be accurate. and by the way, my concern in dealing with both, my expenses, personal expenses, i was concerned that people who are thinking big thoughts about the mayors of chicago and really are interested in who they are and what they did, and watched television news and are interested in reading papers about politics, in many ways very negative toward me. they don't like some the things i say. a lot of the things i say, i want to be careful to not say things that somebody would say well, you know, we told you that he was wrong on that and here's the fact in the book that he lists as a factor but it's not. so that's jacobsen being jacobsen being run. i had to be very careful about that. spent that's hard to argue with. argue with your perspective where you show pictures of streets and san guys asleep on the want of somebody's house

during working hours. [laughter] spin i don't think either of them cared very much about what we did, do you? >> that's a really interesting question your would richard j. daley beats the kids because of something royko said? would he throw his plate of eggs against the wall? i don't think so. i think both of them, and i think you're right, walter, they are disdainful of the press. keith, do you find it in your research, that it was kind of like who gives a shit kind of attitude about -- i don't think was richard m. daley bothered by john calling him mayor shortchange? [laughter] >> i don't think so but my sense is the prose who have a thick skin for most of the stuff and they try to, given a great immediate to serve their political ends. back on the question of the father and the son, one of mine sort of things in the book that i write about, i think the son,

rich daley, was a very astute student of his father's accomplishment and mistakes as a politician. and i think he sort lived in his father's shadow a sort of all politicians did of his generation. by thinkers are careful when he came to power do not repeat the mistakes of his father. so i think the son tried to really work on race relations, particularly with the african-american community. his father had made some huge mistakes and have been criticized for the. the son tried to improve the public schools which is a hard thing to do but he tried to do. the father been criticized if you for not taking care of the public schools. similarly with public housing, he tried to improve public housing. we could debate whether it worked out are not spent the interesting thing about public housing, both of you, he virtually, richard m., virtually erased reach adjacent public housing notion which i found wrong on every level.

it's a high rise ghettos. >> the high rise were tragic. so i think the son look at like his father and said race relations, schools, housing, not going to be chairman of the democratic party. and oh, by the way, my father totally messed up our family's reputation as a 19 city democratic national convention when rich daley was 26. 's was old enough to remember. so when had the chance to do a democratic national convention in chicago, totally different with the protesters protest the let it be very smooth. i think he was trying to finish the unfinished business of the daley family. >> who has a bigger legacy in this town? i know it seems more immediate that richard m. daley would because there's a shiny beam blocks from your spent the legacy can be positive or negative. i think in terms of sort of the size of the legacy richard j. daley was sort of the last of the big city bosses like they don't make them like that anymore. i personally am not huge fan of

the person mayor daley i think he did a good job between 1955-1963. i would give him an a. between 19 sector and i can send six i did a horrible job. i would give him an f. i think the first mayor daley had a very large and very controversial legacy. i think it's sunk in its two early in history to say. but in the book i tried to tell the whole story so people can decide for themselves. >> walter, what about you? you knew them both. you are a child of the city come of this area. what about the legacy of the student? >> i think as society grows all little in age coming in a problem in picking politicians of the past begins to disappear in our focus, that the legacies change. we don't know as much, i do because i worked and worked on for 50 years, most people don't really remember the father and

what he did and how he operated. we're all much more interested in what the son has done. and now we're focusing much on rahm emanuel. you see rich daley has rather disappeared, which i think he likes, i know he likes a lot not being badgered all the time and having to get things done the way he did. i think he is in heaven right now. rich daley's legacy will be tied in so much more directly with who succeeded him. it's always comparison of between rich and rahm and how careful a nine has to be about not undermining rich's legacy. that bothers him to a great extent. but he's so tough and so arrogant and so difficult sometimes that i spent which one are you talking about? [laughter] >> i don't think rich daley was -- i think rahm emanuel that there can. rahm emanuel is a tougher

politician, a lease on the surface. >> who is the most interesting multifaceted politician you have covered or met in your 50 years in this business? >> the most fascinating -- all, boy. i would have to put up their a list of several. i thought dan rostenkowski -- let me say parenthetically that what's interesting to us as journalists is not the kind of thing, generally, that is interesting to people who watch what we do. my interest in some of these politicians was more personal. i wasn't able to, really didn't want to stand back and look with a greater degree of respect, excuse award, but i liked to get involved with them on a personal level selected by the what was going on really inside. so rostenkowski. rahm emanuel will certainly be one of the most interesting but you'll probably be there another at least six years, another term. if he doesn't move on as he sometimes says he doesn't want to do.

and i believe him that he doesn't want to go in the white house. this is as rahm, and as rich said, even the father said, the greatest job in the world if you happen to be from chicago. i would much rather be mayor of chicago than u.s. senator or i don't know about being president, but rahm and -- >> what about jane? >> jane, oh, boy. [laughter] you know what, it's amazing that jane could fall from memory. she was just a fabulous character to cover as a reporter. there were so many wonderful exchanges, negative as well as positive, between the press and mayor bern. she reall really knew what she s doing as for the press was concerned. she had people who were telling her exactly how many people watched the 10:00 news. and on which channels and she uses that information to give us information which went out and

to withhold when she didn't want to do. so she was very confusing interesting and fun -- to use the word fun? 's picture. well, that's one of the reason she made the horrible mistake of marrying a newspaperman. j. mcmullen. i remember going to their wedding where he wore instead of a guy, like a green thing, like you would wrap a gift in. a green ribbon. keith, jane is a huge, huge player in the life of richard in -- richard m. daley. >> interesting story. i forgot how old she was but shalshelooked old enough and shs on lake shore drive. so i called her apartment and to one of the interesting things about the book is i was raised in catholic grade schools and this will teach you like never tell a lie because they are too hard to remember. [laughter] everyone i would interview or

try to india on october 2 and i was told in the same thing and is much easier for me to keep track of. so i called jane byrne at her apartment but she answered the phone and i said hi, jane, i'm trying to undermining a book on chicago politics figure very important person out like to interview you. that's up to the she said okay, sure. let me know get my calendar. you could hear her going down the hall, sort of inner slippers and then down the hall back inner slippers but should one of those old calendars you could hear her go -- and choose okay, i have some days free. what are you thinking? i set a pretty flexible. she said before you tell me the dates, what exactly is your book about? and i said i'm writing a biography of rich daley. and the phone went -- [laughter] and she hung up on me. and i called back and she didn't answer the phone. [laughter] >> how big a part digitally?

she's a major, major figure in this book. >> she's an important figure. she is full of spirit and light and usually smart politically but she had a lot of personality, individual, and she was a protége of the first mayor daley, updated daily. and actually she was co-chairman of the cook county democratic party when the first mayor daley died which was quite unusual for a woman in the 1970s. so she knew, the first mayor daley very well. by all accounts rich daley was sort of jealous to be honest about jeanne burns relationship with his father. so the feelings were pretty strong both ways. they were really rivals politically. and have strong feelings against each other. i think that led each of them to make miscalculations in their career because their feelings about each other were so strong spent first mayor daley may jane

byrne into a politician that she was. if it weren't for mayor daley number one, really want to have jane byrne go hea ahead in her career, she never would have made it. the boys, the suns didn't even know how much the mayor like jane byrne but he used to call her janie another along on their career in giant strides and was very disappointed, she was very disappointed when he can step out of the picture and thought, she thought that perhaps that would be a time for her to kind of receded after having gone so far in advance. they were so close, you know? the boys in the party and given the suns didn't like the fact that the father was in a sense turning things over to jane byrne. i think, tell me if i'm wrong, i think that he had in mind that she would one day become mayor, ma do you agree speak as i always thought he had the

weirdest kind of crush on her, you know? i really did. i really did. i really did. and jane when she was younger was quite the dish. >> if you could get j. mcmullen to say yes to marriage, it would be something. let me ask you both. we bring up this whole notion of women and women in both i think politics and the media here. when walter started media, shortly before i did, women at the chicago daily news were called, if they went on a trip to call it our gal in beirut. very male-dominated business is, walter. talk about that for a while. >> no longer. i keep saying the boys in the democratic party and first mayor daley would have had nothing to do with there. they couldn't understand why he was giving her a chance to move ahead. they didn't like her because she

was in those days were really tough, and don't forget, this is a very strong male chauvinistic city. want to say, or i should say, the irish catholic thing. those women belong in the household, and mayor daley, the first, made it very clear. he sent it to all of our surprise that that's not true. jane byrne and women ought to be more involved. we didn't expect it. >> it goes to another point in your book, keith, that i don't think someone needs to write the biography of maggie daley to get the full weight of influence she had in riches life. and, indeed, without sis, these guys don't become who they are. they are less and spent i know more about maggie for no better. but i really think she was a really positive influence on

her, her husband rich daley as a person obviously but also some of that because he was a powerful figure some of the ways in which he grew personally became reflected in our city. so maggie daley loved to travel. she took him on a lot of trips to places like paris and other places in europe which are positive influences. he would come back and say we should give flowers and boulevards and parks. and then i think she was a cultured woman who like things like theater and other cultural things. she had a really fine cultural sense. which i think, which rubbed off on her husband in positive ways. he was a late boomer about some of these things but as he was in his 50s and even 60s, developed a real appreciation for them. and because he was a powerful man he could support theater in chicago, or support other things. so i thought it was a balanced him out and made him probably a better person individually but also sort of a better leader.

>> we in the business have love-hate relationships with the people we cover. we tried very hard to be there. i think that's fair for me to say, but we fall in a sense, in love with these characters with whom we are working on a daily basis, and with whom we are always in combat. i went to ireland just because i wanted to get a feel for what the daily him and sisters were like. i traveled around the town that the parents grew up in, the ancestor grew up in, looking for people who might come just because i wanted to make and i went to the cemetery to see what the graves of some of the ancestors were like and what the setting was like just because i wanted to feel the way -- i really loved the guy. i didn't like what he did sometimes, the same with rich, but there was something about them in chicago and me and chicago that made me want to

feel more about, literally field rather than learn more about who they were. >> wow. [laughter] and i the only one taking wow or am i the only one saying it? i forgot you gone to ireland to sort of get that sense but did you go to ireland, keith? >> i did not go to ireland. but actually, i think one of the daley scum if you look at people what's interesting is powerful people you sometimes think of them, they are people as well. and so i think one of the things about rich daley as a person because of his great love of chicago which i find attractive. i find that an attractive quality. and i think as a leader, someone who is running a big city it actually became one of his most important political assets because for many years, and i'll be very specific about this, i think between 1989-2003 a lot of

voters voted for rich daley even when they disagreed with him to they say this is typically that's a mistake, but the guy loves the city. he's got the city's best intentions at heart. even if i disagree with him about this or that, the guy loves the city. and then i think between 2003 2003-2011 there were some scandals and some decisions made such as midfield where chicago -- a chicagoan really said if you by the city so much why do you do that? and i think you saw his approval ratings reflected in a pretty deep down will spiral. but i think this love is for many years was a very important political aspect. >> to me it's the media that determines what is good and bad for the city. what we write and what we say is what people read and what people here. so we are the ones who determine

what's news and what isn't news. actually the hardest part of our work. i think that mayor daley has been angry, very -- this is the last mayor daley, very angry at the way the media has treated him. and in many instances has been unfair. >> you think of the -- when that happened the think anybody living in struggle circumstances in austin or inglewood knew what it was? no. didn't give a shit. it a big star because we wrote about it. we put on tv and it was like a big construction project and the axis across the runway is really good story but i guarantee you -- >> am i the only one who thought that what the mayor did about meigs field was a great thing? i love the way -- i love the way went in there and did it. [laughter] spent that shows how few of us have ever flown in or out of

meigs field, that's for sure. >> the me has always said he did in the middle of the night, which wasn't too. he did at 10:00 in the evening. [laughter] >> i'm going to the opportunity for some of you to ask questions because that's what we do here. but it wanted to devote five minutes to the subject and i will tell you because you told me the subject of trenches next book, that would be a human being named rahm emanuel. how's that going so far? [laughter] spent i meet with them everyday for a couple of hours spent it's going well but i just compare the two books. my first book is really, it starts in 19 are cute and goes to 2011. it covers sort of 100 years of the daley family. 100 is a chicago history it's written in a very balanced way. i try to be objective about

strengths and weaknesses, published as an mistakes mistakes. it's a straight history. this book will have a different tone and feel. and we'll come right now in -- the book i'm writing now is -- i'm a third generation chicagoan and i've lived here my whole life to my parents immigrant instantly to their whole life. so it will be the perspective of, like if so moved in your house all of a sudden. someday she'll like them, some days they drive you crazy. you agree with them, you disagree with them. i sort of feel like rahm moved into my city. so i'm going to write a book that covers the first three years of his administration. so it will start in may 2011 and go to make 2014. but then it's also going to be sort of a rough -- a rough draft sketch of formative period of his life that serve help the reader to understand how he became who he is today. it will have a different feel,

more of a journalistic feel, more of a personal feel to it than my daley one. >> is a big undertaking the because whatever you say will become dated by the time you get to the end of the senses, don't you think le lexi is so volatile and so involved in everything. he just never stops. too much. it's like a title, living with rahm, "fast and furious." [laughter] >> i don't think the. because it's written in first person you sort of in some which you can be wrong. it is your book to write in daley. if you said to your friends, i went to printers, walter jacobson was great i really enjoyed walter jacobson-what is other talk and i didn't go so agenda is why i didn't enjoy. that they feel about it. there's no way you can be wrong. that was your take on printers row. >> [inaudible] >> will have to see spent walter, what about you? this is such a well written

interesting book. to have another book any? >> oh, my gosh, i'm not going to write another book. spent so this is your only one and only chance to walter jacobson on your bookshelf. [laughter] >> i'm trying to decide what to do. i am now retired again for three months. >> that's not long. >> journalism in this town, it's a wonderful thing. there's just so much going on and there's so many different ways to cover it. i want to somehow stay involved. haven't decided pashtun deaths were not the book. this is not a book about chicago. this is a book about how i grew up in the business and what it's like inside the business, how we decide which reporters to cover, how we handle the trouble we have with the politicians who don't like what we are saying. spent and what it was like to be a cubs batboy. [laughter] spent that was interesting, too.

>> how about some questions from you seemingly very smart and -- people? there's a microphone right there. it comes somebody. >> i was winning if you could comment on the whole olympics thing and how not getting it seemed to be the beginning of the in for mayor daley and all that went into the and whether you thought it was a good idea in the first place? >> i don't think, on the one he believes that the loss of the olympics was kind of the beginning of the and of daley. he put his heart into debt, and he should have, we should have, won the olympic. it was a great deal of politics involved in that decision. i don't think that the olympics in do you really have much to do with daley coming or going now? >> i actually think, three factors was one of them. i don't know what these folks do for a living but my experience with work is it's always nice to have a big exciting project to

look forward to because work is hard and this could have something to look forward to. i think if we would've won the olympics that would've been the big exciting project spent and hhe is still maven. >> i think he would've enjoyed it. so having lost the olympics he didn't have a big exciting project. i would also say his approval ratings were at an all time low. 35%. i actually think he was beatable. in 2011 but if rahm would have ran against him in 2011 i think rahm would have b-game. >> can you even imagine rahm running against richard m. daley? >> i could. [laughter] then finally i would say he surpassed his father to become the longest serving mayor in history of chicago. i think that was important to him personally. and by staying for another four years, you can't get that notch in your belt. >> i would like to ask the walter what is his perspective of the state of media right now? especially the "chicago

sun-times" laying off all of its photographers and probably the question whether or not are we hanging to a one newspaper town, what's your perspective? what you like about the current state of me and what you don't like, especially with social media, seems like taking things over. >> i'm sorry, maybe i'm not hearing it. i don't get skittish the current state of the media. sometimes, laos giving all manner of things but i'm going to give you an answer. spanky would be a good one to talk about that. it's just desperate, print media is on the way out. it won't be long before i, i was in new york last week and people were talking about "the new york times" actually, actually closing down. there just isn't cutting you know, the web, the internet has taken over for the newspapers and everything now is on, in digital form.

so it's a bad, bad time for print journalism. and now it's not a good time for television journalism is a big it's a bad time for journalism in terms of the money to sustain it. that isn't to say it's about time for things that are going on because they're so much to report. in fact, there's more to report under has ever been before, especially when you're a king laid it over the years. i think the outlook for the needy is pretty grim. and that's very bad for all of us. >> i agree. i could go on but i'm not going to go on for 20 minutes about the growing. i think it's shameful what happened to the sun-times photographers. i'm, shameful. and i think whatever amount of money they might've been saving when you're sitting in a room saying, well, if we fire all of these guys, how much could we save your? and someone said, maybe it would be like, not much, $2 million. than i thought, and you're willing to risk the embarrassment and shame

worldwide? this was news in shanghai, that it was, i mean, that was a spike in the heart of old media. and what's going to happen? i do know. the koch brothers will buy the tribune. who knows? it's a time when someone needs to come up with a way to find journalism. journalism is not going to die. journalism is impossible to its -- so has to figure out a way to make money out of it. >> we will be charging more. >> what you think a newspaper is really worth? there's still 67,000 people who buy the "chicago tribune." i think there's some hope -- [applause] i think there's some hope in newspapers in that not everybody who wants a hamburger goes to mcdonald's. there are people who say i'm going to have a hamburger at gibsons. one day you'll have your right, you'll have to pay for what advertisers have been

subsidizing all these years spent what do you think you want to a new stand on a sunday if you want to read the new times and you see the price on, $6.50, and you say i don't want to spend that on a newspaper. they are really suffering, and their own losing -- all the media right now doing much more firing and hiring. if you walk through some of the television stations these days you will see they are bearing. there just aren't enough people speak the only reason you don't think "new york times" is worth $6.50 is because you haven't been paying attention, and which can get the new times anybody will tell you the new times is not worth the cost of a beer at the corners cap is crazy but you've just been getting a virtually for nothing all this time, that's all. yes, sir. >> i want to quit, and i want to thank mr. jacobson. recently within the last year your commentary, i have to

thank, regarding community in chicago, that's the italian american community. you've made some comments that really i found profound had an impact on me and i was almost in tears in that you hit it so much on the head regarding this old half a century stereotype, and to emphasize some of the contributions of a small ethnic community that you brought to life. i just have to thank you. only you and father greeley, rest his soul, would go in that area and talk about contributions as opposed to this old time organized crime myth again i have to thank you for that, after jacobson. >> thank you. [applause] spent one of the things, this was a riffing on television years ago you would lynn o'connor doing commentaries. this is an important thing and that it has vanished. it's look, here's a big pothole

in kansas city. who cares? yes, sir. >> quick question for both. for keith, you get a grade to richard -- to richard j. do you care to give grades to richard m.? walter, we talked a lot about the mayoral candidates, the ms. who are a couple of the chicago politician ship in a press with over years you that maybe would've been a good mayor? >> who would have been a good mayor? >> yes. >> rick. [laughter] think i would've said an extraordinary mayor but i, too, many skeletons in my closet, even near. [laughter] i don't know, i don't know that it could've been better mayors than either of the franchise, for a variety of reasons. they just control things but i believe in a strong centralized government that can get things done rather than leaving to me things up to debate. i don't think there's anybody out there right now who could do a better job. the problems are just so immense between the schools and shootings that there's no other

politicians. especially comments by since most of the politicians who are in high office that came through more of a political system, the leaders in politics now in government a more for political system than a governmental system. who is out there just by name, nobody. rahm is doing, rahm, as difficult as he is, and he is difficult, he is making some progress that hasn't been made in the wild. and they don't see, i can't think of a name of a person who would be better to or worse. >> i think your question is a great one, and i don't know if you caught it but earlier when walter was talking about the relationship between rich daley and his successor, rahm to his observation i think is right on the mark. i think his observation was that in a lot of ways rich daley's legacy is in rahm's hands right now. i think rich daley, the second mayor daley had a lot of accomplishments and those are sort of done.

he adds and thinks what he was open to criticism and those are still there. for things like the pension crisis and the budget deficit and the crime to if rahm solves the penchant crisis, and the crime, speak and the schools. >> then people, history, history will forget that those who problems for daley. if rahm doesn't solve those things then history will remember those are problems for daley but it is a very recent history and with recent history still in open books comes sort of all too early for grades. with the first mayor daley, not in the past, it sort of is what it is and you can have your opinion about it. we might agree, might disagree but i feel more comfortable looking back on that. >> one last question. >> chicago to me has been the center of a huge metropolis. chicago, its government has been divided through latina, through blogs, through white's. what do you see as the future, like 20 years from now? what kind of governmental

structure d.c.? d.c. one ethnic group popping up? >> i don't think there's a way to predict. there's so many things that just pop up into the public i in so many ways that the media determine what's going on in government that just no way, we know it's happening with population trees. we know that chicago is becoming increasingly minority population. so that's going to change the map on politics and change the politicians. the exciting politicians are leading the scene because politics isn't as important to anybody anymore as you've been observing as government -- the newspapers today, dick malka singh is going to leave city council hopefully to find way to make room for said daughter to take over his ward. but we just can't tell what's going to happen. of the economy is going to go one way or another and that's going to determine what happens to politics. >> i think demographics are

powerful. i think the hispanic population, the mexican population is going to get very large within our lifetime, within the next 10 or 20 years. if i was a betting person i would say we'll probably have a hispanic mayor within the next 20 years. i think that's a pretty safe bet. spent i'm going to send out to buy these books with the notion, given both of these books, contemplate for a moment if mayor washington hadn't died when he died. contemplated that the contemplate richard m., richard j. is like a super can't avoid chicago and i don't know better or worse. i want to thank you all. enjoy the rest of the day. by these books. [applause] ..