In the past few decades, there has been a lot of writing by social scientists about many types of intelligence besides the one we all know from IQ tests. In the 1990s, psychologist Howard Gardner claimed to have discovered eight different types of intelligence, including not just verbal but visual, mathematical, and kinesthetic, to name a few. In 2005, journalist Daniel Goleman published a best-selling book postulating the existence of what he called emotional intelligence and exploring its importance in dealing with everyday life.
There is, however, one kind of intelligence which does not figure in these lists, though it seems to me as real as any of them. I'm talking about political intelligence. It can be difficult to pinpoint, but the more you think about it, the more you have to admit that there is something in it.
Leaders can be politically astute without being articulate, well-read, skilled at mathematics, or even particularly self-aware. There are all kinds of modern examples.
Dwight Eisenhower, who had never seen battle in his life, orchestrated a remarkable political feat on D-Day by melding dozens of warring personalities and stubborn egos into a powerful fighting unit. Fiorello LaGuardia had an uncanny instinct for building coalitions, which enabled him to serve three fruitful terms as mayor of war- and Depression-torn New York City.
More recently, Ronald Reagan reached the pinnacle of American politics, and largely flourished there, without displaying any of Howard Gardner's versions of intelligence except that which Gardner described as “interpersonality,” which reflects the ability to judge what one thinks. The others. Reagan may have had it, but I feel more comfortable narrowing down his talents to a distinct form of political intelligence.
On a local level, I would cite Thomas Menino, the long-serving mayor of Boston, who was so inarticulate and tongue-tied that critics derided him as not very smart. But politically, Menino was smarter than any of them, and he achieved an economic and cultural renaissance that made him his city's most accomplished mayor of modern times.
Conversely, there were political leaders who would have scored highly on Gardner's checklist, but who seemed lost in convincing others or passing a program. President John Quincy Adams was the premier in this section. In much more recent times, and more controversially, I would have put President Jimmy Carter on the same list.
I think we can agree that there is such a thing as political intelligence. But what does it consist of? Let me offer some nominations. Political intelligence requires the quality of anticipation, that is, the ability to think several steps ahead while others remain stuck in the same place. It involves the skill of reading others when they are not directly conveying their intentions. It often takes a certain kind of boldness, the foresight necessary to pursue and succeed at tactics that others consider risky. Above all, it seems to require a certain balance, an instinct to know how far one can go.
I thought about all of these things as I read The Daley Show, Forrest Claypool's insightful account of Chicago's Richard M. Daley, the longest-serving mayor in the city's history, and I also found myself thinking about the career of his father, Richard J. Daley, who served nearly the same amount of time And to the same extent. Claypool was a longtime aide to the younger Daley, but a fair student of Chicago politics. Both Daleys had their faults, as almost everyone knows and Claypool admits, but if there is such a thing as political intelligence, it is indisputable that they both had it.
University of Illinois Press
Richard J. Daley has rarely been portrayed as a political visionary, but he was clearly thinking about what needed to be done on the routine side of government to keep his regime in power. Daley is often ridiculed for declaring that “good government is good politics,” but he meant it, and he understood better than most other politicians that it was about the mundane operations of his regime — picking up trash, efficiently responding to emergency calls, keeping neighborhoods safe. , and running an efficient transportation system – which is what matters more than grandiose visions for a city's future.
All of these day-to-day operations were made possible by a quasi-feudal network of pro-machine precinct leaders and dictatorial neighborhood committeemen who collected salaries, but it was the results on the street that mattered to the residents, and Dalí was able to manage these operations. It's so good that when he referred to Chicago as a “successful city,” people not only believed him in his country, but also in the national media.
When it came to corruption, Dalí Sr. demonstrated another crucial element of political intelligence – the need for balance and restraint. Daley's achievement of the physical renewal of downtown Chicago was accomplished through quasi-legal contract subsidies, grants, exemptions, and special permissions for political favorites, but he also knew that bypassing any of these allies could bring the entire system into disrepute, and he allowed it. His companions go only so far and no further. “I let them take a lot but no more,” he once told a colleague. Daly believed that effective local government, at least in Chicago, depended largely on tolerating misconduct, but he knew when to stop. He was the Director of Violations. This was a lesson that many aspiring mayors and governors never seem to learn. This was perhaps Dalí's most striking display of political astuteness.
When Richard M. “Rich” Mayor Daley, 13 years after Daley Sr.'s death, was often said to be his father's equal when it came to verbal clumsiness, but he was no match for ordinary political intelligence. The Wall Street Journal quoted an experienced observer of Chicago politics as saying that the younger Daley was “dumb as a box of rocks.” There have probably been more misjudgments than any American politician in modern times, but if there has been any I don't know what.
What the younger Dalí possessed above all was an uncanny ability to pursue policies whose long-term benefits many around him saw as questionable. Even more exciting was his determination to build a public park on the defunct railroad tracks south of downtown. Millennium Park was a half-billion-dollar gamble, but it not only paid for itself, it became a civic icon and a global tourist attraction, almost like the Eiffel Tower in the American Midwest. In the first six months after its opening in 2004, it attracted more than two million visitors. 10 years later, it has generated more than $2 billion in visitor spending.
Daley's decision to participate in a gay rights march during his first term as mayor was viewed by many as a politically reckless stroke of audacity. But it brought him a loyal audience that never abandoned him. In 2006, he was inducted into Chicago's LGBTQ Hall of Fame.
Perhaps the most eventful political strategy of Daley's long tenure was his careful cultivation of a Hispanic political base. Chicago was split roughly two-thirds between black, white, and Hispanic residents, and Daley began his first term as a suspicious figure in the black community, having succeeded an African-American mayor. But he soon realized that if he could attract enough Latino support, he would not be vulnerable to a black competitor. This was the origin of the Spanish Democratic Organization, which Claypool described as “the most powerful political arm of the new Daley machine.”
Much of what Dali did reflects his sheer audacity. When previous school reform plans produced poor achievements, he took over the management of the school system himself. In his quest to rejuvenate neighborhoods that had fallen into decline, he saw the benefits of massive tax increment financing (TIF) plans when others did not. It is plausible to argue that Daley's extensive deployment of TIFs went too far and contributed to the financial problems that worsened toward the end of his reign. But there's no question that they transformed much of the city, and most of the communities they transformed were healthier when Daley left office.
It is fair to point out that superior political intelligence can transcend itself, and Claypool is keen to document some of the excesses and failures generated by Daly's overconfidence. When he wanted to build a park on the site of a small, privately used airport in the city centre, he ordered the airport demolished in the middle of the night without any real legal authority. When an embarrassing scandal emerged in the public truck rental system, he was reluctant to do anything about it. When the city's budget deficit became unmanageable in his final term, Daley negotiated the sale of the city's parking meters to a private company, ultimately costing Chicago hundreds of millions of dollars.
Those are important lessons. No matter how much political intelligence a leader has, in the end he sometimes forgets the need for balance and assumes that it is possible to get away with almost anything. Rich Daly gave in to it. But if you look at the city he inherited in 1989 and the city he left in 2011, I think you have to conclude that Chicago was better off as a result of his six terms in power. That's what Claypool thinks. “Daly’s errors and misjudgments should not diminish the enormously transformative office of a mayor who has not only reflected the fortunes of a great city but also provides a model for future city leaders,” he writes. This seems to be a fair assessment.
