EXTRA: Did Joyce just have most-significant electoral accomplishment?

Jerry Joyce is the mayoral candidate whose most significant personal fact about himself is that he is from a family that has long been associated politically with the Daley family.

JOYCE: Number One (for a day)

Joyce’s father, Jeremiah, in fact was one of those behind-the-scenes guys who served as a significant adviser to Mayors Daley – both the elder and the younger.

THERE ISN’T MUCH else to say about him – other than the fact that he’s going to have his name atop the list of mayoral candidates on the ballot for the Feb. 26 election.

Joyce won the lottery, which gives him the ballot spot in the prime place. There are those who say some people are clueless enough they merely vote for the first name they see – and could get some 1 or 1 percent of the votes for that reason alone.

In a campaign where even after candidates get kicked off the ballot for insufficient support, there are still doing to be at least a dozen or so candidates in the running. Any advantage in gaining votes could mean something.

Except that it might turn out that Joyce is just too obscure politically to be able to take full advantage of this political perk.

LEARNING THIS WEEK of Joyce getting the top ballot spot actually reminded me of a past election cycle – as in the Democratic primary for governor in 1994.

That election cycle saw state Attorney General Roland Burris, Comptroller Dawn Clark Netsch and Cook County Board President Richard Phelan challenge each other for governor – yet the top ballot spot went by lottery to Jim Gierach – a suburban Palos Park attorney who has spent much of his public life campaigning for less-draconian laws related to drugs.

I remember being a reporter-type person speaking with Gierach that day; knowing there was a good chance it would be the last time I’d give his campaign for governor any significant attention. Is that the same for Joyce for mayor this week?

GIERACH: Won 'No. 1' slot in '94

Then again, I also remember the Netsch campaign’s response, which gained the Second ballot spot from the lottery. They contended that voters would ignore the little-known “Gierach” name on top and look to the second slot.

IT’S LIKE THEY really won the ballot lottery. Or at least that’s the political “spin” they put on the issue.

Would that make one-time Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas the big winner; since he is the one who gained the second ballot slot out of the list of 21 candidates who currently are in the running for mayor?

Putting him ahead of Number three Willie Wilson and Number four Toni Preckwinkle? Or is this all a batch of political hooey intended to try to get us to think something significant is happening – when in reality we’re still just over two months away from Election Day.

And some four months from the likely run-off election April 2 that will actually decide who will be taking the oath of office as Chicago’s new mayor come the city’s Inauguration Day in May.

THERE IS ONE part of the Joyce campaign, however, that continues to intrigue me. For it seems that the alleged Daley family ally is actually the guy who filed the legal challenge to the mayoral nominating petitions of William Daley.

DALEY: Tense times with Joyce?

Could Joyce think that, if only, he could get a Daley name off the ballot, he might actually have a chance of achieving political victory? For many of the challenges that have been filed have been done with the “logic” of kicking off the candidate who most closely resembles one’s own (such as Preckwinkle allies being behind the effort to remove Susana Mendoza from the mayoral running).

“Mayor Joyce?” I don’t know how much of a ring it has to it. Would the type of Chicagoans who think the “Daley” name is synonymous with City Hall be willing to accept it? Will the Christmas holiday greetings between the two political families be particularly tense this season?

Or could all of this merely be evidence of how inane our political procedures are capable of being?

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Is Chicago in for Daley III, with Daley IV waiting in the wings of City Hall?

We, the electorate of Chicago, may get to see just how addicted we are to having the concept of a “Mayor Daley” in charge of our city.

The next 'Mayor Daley?'

For William Daley, the brother of former Mayor Richard M. Daley and a son of long-ago Mayor Richard J. Daley, is indicating that he now wants to get into the mix of people likely to run for Chicago mayor come the Feb. 26 municipal elections.

NEWS REPORTS INDICATE that Bill Daley likely will kick off his campaigning for City Hall come Monday; wanting to be the guy who replaces Rahm Emanuel – who back in 2011 was the guy who replaced his brother, Rich, at the helm of municipal government.

It seems that Bill thinks Chicago has gone long enough without a “Mayor Daley” in charge.

The trick would be to see whether Chicago voters really are that enamored of the Daley name to send another of the grandchildren of Michael Daley to City Hall – with Michael being the Irish immigrant father of Richard J. Daley – who rose high above his Bridgeport neighborhood roots to become the so-called “legendary” mayor of Chicago.

Of course, legendary is the polite way some people express the idea of tyrannical – as in a political boss who ruled with an iron fist for more than two decades until his death in 1976.

Hizzoner's son

I REMEMBER SOME speculation eight years ago when Rich Daley chose to retire following 23 years in office that even he was realistic to accept the notion that Chicago was tired of the “Mayor Daley” concept and in need of change.

But could eight years of Emanuel and his own strong-arm style of politics have been the key to get many establishment-minded Chicagoans ready to return to the idea of a Daley in charge?

Daley who avoided top spot

Could the Sout’ Side politicos be ready to reassert themselves as the ones in charge of Chicago – following eight years of a mayor from the Ravenswood neighborhood?

Not that Bill Daley is a political amateur. He served at the federal level during both the Clinton and Obama presidencies. Albeit, as the lesser of the two presidential chiefs of staff from Chicago that Obama employed. Along with being the campaign manager who desperately tried to get Al Gore elected president in 2000.

Could the Bridgeport alderman be next?

AND HIS MOMENT of “glory” during the Clinton years may have been when he was introduced as the new Commerce secretary – only to pass out unconscious during the introduction ceremony. Officially, the lights were on so intensely that the heat got to him.

My point is that both of these posts presented enough moments where Daley critics could find reason to ridicule Bill and to claim that he’s not even at the level of his brother, with neither reaching the stature while in office of their father.

What may actually be more significant is that Bill Daley is the guy who has often talked of wanting to run for political office in the past – most often putting his name out there as a possible governor of Illinois.

Yet Bill Daley has always found reasons to back out of actually running, making some political observers question whether he has what it takes to endure the gristle of an electoral campaign.

THEN AGAIN, BILL Daley in the past always talked about wanting to be governor. Perhaps the desire to run for the top post at City Hall could be what sways him to want to stay in the campaign all the way through Election Day.

It all originates with Dick Daley

Being “Mayor Daley III” could sound more important to him than that of “Gov. Daley,” even though that always had the potential for a political power punch since it could have resulted in a combination of Mayor Daley (as in Rich) and Gov. Daley (as in Bill), along with brother John Daley deciding to rise up from his Cook County Board seat to run for county board President.

A Daley trifecta, albeit one that would have terrified Illinoisans from outside of Chicago. But to those who would have been enamored by the idea of so many Daleys in charge, the idea of Bill Daley being on the ballot for mayor may be a fantasy come true.

That is, unless you’re willing to wait a generation for 11^th Ward Alderman Patrick D. (as in Daley) Thompson, a nephew to both Rich and Bill and grandson to Dick, to make a run for putting the mayoral post back in the Bridgeport neighborhood.

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