Win at bingo with Ald. Joe Moore's money at a nursing home

Chicago has a proud tradition of vote-buying. I thought it was a thing of the past, but maybe not, as Tom Mannis at Rogers Park Bench explains:

A resident of the Arbour Health Care Center in Rogers Park gave a tip in advance to the Ginderske (one of Joe Moore's opponent's in Tuesday's election) campaign team that 49th Ward Alderman Joe Moore would be handing out cash to people participating in bingo at the facility. The tip was shared with me.

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We were told by more than one resident that bingo players would be playing with Joe Moore's money. That money came from an envelope in Joe Moore's pocket. The largest prize won was $10.00 per winner. Joe Moore personally handed cash to the winner of each bingo game from the envelope in his pocket. The game would start at $5.00 or $10.00 prizes. The dollar increments increased as the game progressed. Moore, accompanied by Anne Sullivan, stayed for approximately one hour. Their names were not seen on the register. We signed out at 2:45 p.m.

Tom has video of Moore speaking...and of his getting tossed out by a nursing home staffer.

That money undoubtedly came from Moore's campaign fund. Was it from one of his many developer pals? Or from the United Food and Commercial Workers? Or the Service Employees Union?

Or from this leftist group I've never heard of from Vermont, Democracy for America.

From the Democracy for America blog:

Joe Moore is an incumbent Chicago alderman who has asked for DFA's help with his re-election and I am thrilled to see that DFA is supporting him.

It's admittedly a somewhat odd request; Chicago has long had a deservedly notorious tradition in terms of elected officials in general and city aldermen in particular. The number of convicted and indicted criminals who at one time or another have represented the city is such that folks here have stopped keeping count. Nowadays it seems a more useful number is what sports bettors call the "over/under" of aldermen who will leave office under a cloud – or in handcuffs – in a given year. That number has held steady in the 3-6 range for quite some time. (But as Letterman says, "Please; no wagering.")

Pleasantly, the past couple of decades have brought a rising alternative tradition to Chicago's political history, that of the reform alderman.

Does bingo count as wagering? Anyway, spoiler alert: after reviewing the history of Chicago reform aldermen, Joe Moore is the latest incarnation, or at least Democracy for America thinks so, of a reform alderman.

Good job Tom on your original reporting. Yes, Kathleen Parker, we do that sometimes.

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