By Michael Miner
Mikva lost by four percentage points in ’72, won by two in ’74, and was reelected in ’76 and ’78 with barely over half the vote. Finally Jimmy Carter rescued him from these Sisyphean labors by making him a federal appellate judge. He was last in the public eye as counsel to President Clinton.
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But Mikva’s last election was 18 years ago. Richard J. Daley, suggested in the book by the late, omnipotent Francis X. Silverio, died 20 years ago. The book’s current mayor, the mercurial Lily Russell, is an engaging amalgam of Jane Byrne and Harold Washington that reminds the reader both are history. And Russell’s cunning nemesis, “the Rocket,” is based on an aldermanic mastermind who now jabbers on radio. Scandal turns pages faster than nostalgia.
And in politics too. “When I basically retired from politics after the 1990 elections, when I ceased being a committeeman in Evanston, I felt essentially burned out,” Kinczewski said. “The Mikva campaigns and Abner Mikva were worth trying to get down on paper, but initially I was trying more to sort out my own feelings.
“Best I’ve ever seen,” he said. “In fact, when I sent Mikva a copy of the book I said, there’s only one candidate who could get me back into the arena. So stay retired.”
The Tribune’s daily sports section finished in the top ten among large papers. Its Sunday sports section and a special section previewing the NBA season received honorable mentions.
Although the Tribune acknowledged the Sun-Times’s accomplishments, the Sun-Times didn’t deign to mention the Tribune’s.
