Chicago Mayor Richard Daley lashed out at Republicans today for using the phrase “Chicago machine politics” against Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.
It started last night, when former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani used his speech at the Republican National Convention to ridicule Obama’s biography.
GIULIANI: He worked as a community organizer. He immersed himself in Chicago machine politics.
Daley, whose career grew within Chicago’s Democratic Party, had this reaction:
DALEY: I don’t know where we get this, this idea that there’s a big Democratic machine going on. Chicago and the metropolitan area is very Democratic and the state is. There’s no, this machine. I thought it was laughable.
Daley says conventions are designed for party leaders to attack politicians on the other side of the aisle. He also says Obama is as experienced as anyone else and has qualities similar to those of former President Franklin Roosevelt.