For you out-of-towners, “Proco” Joe Moreno is the Alderman of the first ward.
I don’t live in the first ward. I’m in the 35th. Our alderman is Rey “the invisible” Colon. Colon is considered an independent, That is because he is independent of taking any position on any issue facing the citizens of this city.
The first ward is just a few blocks away from my house. In fact, as a result of the last redistricting Logan Square is now divided up into so many wards that I think my bedroom will be in one ward, my toilet in another and I’ll be washing my clothes in the laundry room in a third.
Proco is known by some as the hipster alderman. Why? I have no idea other than parts of his ward include what are considered by some as the hipster neighborhoods of Logan Square and Bucktown. And he doesn’t dress like the late Vito Marzullo.
Marzullo was known for his connections to the mob and for what he told constituents when he voted for an increase in property taxes: “Everything is going up. Only rain and snow is comin’ down.”
I saw the hipster alderman the other night at the Logan Square auditorium when we had the Town Hall for an elected school board. CTU President Karen Lewis was among the featured speakers.
I guess you have to give the hipster alderman some credit for balls. During the strike, he issued a blistering attack on the teachers, calling the strike unnecessary and accusing Lewis of grandstanding.
In today’s Huffington Post the hipster alderman endorses Obama.
And then attacks him.
I, like many unashamed self-described progressives, have been a little disappointed by some of his policies and his certain willingness to compromise with moral absolutists and intellectual lightweights. Politics is the art of compromise, indeed, but I’ve often been frustrated by Obama’s lack of fight (his lack of “Chicagoness”).
What is true in Proco’s comment is that being a progressive is self-described. That’s because nobody else would call him that.
As for a Chicago alderman criticizing Obama’s lack of fight as a lack of “Chicagoness”?
Proco called the teachers’ strike unnecessary.
Hell, the strike was an glowing example of Chicagoness.
Aldermen? They have something called the spirit of what’s-in-it-for-me.
With friends like Proco? Watch your back Barack.
Update: A reader posts in the comment section an interesting observation.
Imho, it would seem that Proco is attached to Emanuel at the hip. So why would he (they) backhand the President in this way?
Are they planting an opposing narrative to explain the loss of the presidency, should it come to that?
Something along these lines — it is Mr. Obama’s personal failing that cost him the job, not the very risky and long Chicago public schools strike — a fight the mayor picked, as Carol Marin had said.
Fred Klonsky 
Imho, it would seem that Proco is attached to Emanuel at the hip. So why would he (they) backhand the President in this way?
Are they planting an opposing narrative to explain the loss of the presidency, should it come to that?
Something along these lines — it is Mr. Obama’s personal failing that cost him the job, not the very risky and long Chicago public schools strike — a fight the mayor picked, as Carol Marin had said.
I believe that Alderman Moreno is a proponent of charters and an ally of the King of charters, Mr. Rangel, an insider of Rahm, so what can we expect but an anti-unions sentiment??