From the Sun-Times:

How much longer until politicians use up their 'corruption allowance'?

November 15, 2006
BY MARK BROWN Sun-Times Columnist
We've long known that Chicago voters show a certain degree of tolerance when it comes to corruption involving their public officials, the election results from last week providing yet another reminder.

But William "Dock" Walls, the other declared candidate for mayor, has come along this week and for the first time put a name on this concept.

Walls calls it the "corruption allowance."

I kind of like that.

'A limited allotment'
As Walls defines it, the corruption allowance "is a limited allotment of passes that allow elected officials and politicians to violate the public trust and still be acceptable to the community."

In other words, we don't expect our politicians to be Mr. Clean, but we have our limits. These limits may not be as readily quantifiable as the weekly allowance you give your kids, but an elected official exceeds his or her allotment at their own risk.

Some voters extend a corruption allowance while chalking it up as the cost of making government work efficiently in a big city. Others just believe it's the one-hand-washes-the-other way of the world.

I've always marveled at our corruption allowance. I just didn't know what to call it.

Now that it has a name, my mind is racing to consider the possible corollaries: Does a politician's corruption allowance increase the longer he is in office or is it a one-shot allotment with a cumulative drawdown? Can they replenish their allowance by performing certain chores, such as planting trees and flowers? Are white politicians given a bigger allowance than black politicians, or is the opposite true?

Walls is claiming the corruption allowance as an original idea, so I'm giving him credit.

I probably could have just stolen his idea, but the Walls campaign has been touchy about that sort of thing since Mayor Daley's surprise suggestion to build his temporary Olympic stadium in Washington Park, an idea that Walls had previously mentioned at a meeting attended by the mayor.

Obviously, Walls' purpose in publicly raising the concept of a corruption allowance at this time was not just to take credit for adding it to the local political lexicon. Rather, he wanted to make the case that Daley has overspent his own corruption allowance. "We believe the vast majority of Chicago voters are fed up with corruption and ready for change," Walls said.

Actually, I think the polls say otherwise, but I am determined to stop covering elections on the basis of polls, which enables them to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So for the sake of argument, let's propound that the mayor has certainly been dissipating his allowance at a faster rate in recent years than at any other time since Daley was elected mayor in 1989.

Between the Hired Truck scandal and the hiring fraud scandal and the Duffs' phony minority contract scandal, the mayor has been spending his allowance more quickly than his friends at the Chamber of Commerce could ever hope to restore.

And yet, it would appear to me that the mayor either has not exhausted his allowance or just doesn't need one -- if his only opponents in February are Cook County Circuit Clerk Dorothy Brown and Walls, a onetime aide to the late Mayor Harold Washington.

Maybe this is because it has yet to be shown that the scandals have put any money in Daley's own pocket, just his political coffers.

As a general rule, a politician can raise millions of dollars in campaign donations from government contractors without taking as big a political hit as one questionable $1,500 "gift" that they put in their pocket.

In last week's election, Gov. Blagojevich somehow managed to survive doing both, perhaps because George Ryan had already exhausted Judy Baar Topinka's corruption allowance while he was borrowing against the Republican Party's future.

Don't underestimate Daley
Walls believes the public is already of a mind that Daley has exhausted his corruption allowance but that the news media hasn't caught up to them. He says he is amazed we still consider the mayor electable given the extent of the scandals. Looking at the negligible effect of the news media on the races for governor and Cook County president, I'm not sure the media is the controlling factor.

Exit polls last week showed that corruption was the top concern of voters in Illinois, yet I can't really point to the result of any individual contest where that played out.

As far as Daley, "I wonder how much of his allowance is his father's allowance," Walls said, referring to the deference some older voters give the mayor because of their fondness for Mayor Richard J. Daley. "Because he's the son, they think he can do anything he wants to do."

I'd have to think the mayor is pretty much relying on his own popularity at this point in his political career.

There's a good possibility there will be more City Hall indictments between now and the mayoral election, which may or may not make a difference.

Walls and Brown should never underestimate what Daley may have saved for a rainy day.