Daley = Stroger?

Could the cracks be spreading throughout the organization?

• Mayor Richard Daley often talks about how Chicagoans want a decisive, visionary leader who can get things done without "endless politics," and that promise of iron control has become key to the city's bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics.
  
  But with the pivotal Olympics decision three weeks away, Daley finds himself in one of the most troubled periods of his long reign. Daley's decision to lease the city parking meter system left motorists furious over skyrocketing rates and balky machines. Then he fumbled in explaining his promise that taxpayers would cover potential losses from the Olympics.
  
  For the first time since he became mayor two decades ago, Daley's critics outnumber his fans, a Tribune/WGN poll found. The mayor's approval rating is at an all-time low of 35 percent in Tribune polls, according to the new survey.

But is it low enough for voters to abandon the "better the thief you know" method of voting and vote for someone who isn't quite as big a thief as Shortshanks? Daley is vulnerable to a real challenge. The Machine is vulnerable to a real referendum on term limits, ward boundaries and maybe even a major reduction in the actual amount of aldercreatures. It's about time.