-By Warner Todd Huston
Our friend Pat Hickey has caught wind of some potentially interesting news on Chicago’s soon to be roiling Mayoral election now that Richard “King” Daley has decided he no longer wants the big seat. Conservative publisher R. Emmett Tyrell, Jr. has reportedly said he might be interested in taking a run at City Hall.
Pat reports that through the grapevine he heard of Tyrell’s possible campaign:
R. Emmett Tyrrell, the founder of The American Spectator is interested in running for Mayor of Chicago. Bob Tyrrell, like Governor Pat Quinn, is a proud Alumnus of Fenwick High School.
It sure would be interesting to see a man of high education and one so well spoken for the conservative cause throw his hat into the right, wouldn’t it?
For those of you who don’t know Emmett from Adam, he is the founder of the conservative magazine The American Spectator.
Here is a short bio:
Robert Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. (born December 14, 1943 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American conservative magazine editor, New York Times bestselling author, and columnist. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of The American Spectator. He writes under the byline R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. but is known socially as Bob Tyrrell. Tyrrell is a 1961 graduate of Fenwick High School in Oak Park, Illinois, where he was on the swim team. He then went to Indiana University where he was a swim team manager for the notable coach James “Doc” Counsilman. While at Indiana University, he was a member of Phi Kappa Psi, living in a chapter house where Steve Tesich resided and in years when Bob was not at IU, such figures as Mark Spitz, and Evan Bayh. He did not live in the chapter house for his entire stay at IU but rather lived off campus with swimmers John Wagner and Terry Townsend.
In 2000, government investigations of The American Spectator caused Tyrrell to sell the magazine to venture capitalist George Gilder. In 2003, Gilder, having a series of financial and legal setbacks, resold the magazine to Tyrrell and the American Alternative Foundation, the organization under which the magazine was originally incorporated, for a dollar
I really hope that Tyrell does enter the race. It really should make things interesting, not to mention giving Chicagoans a great choice to replace Daley. We could at long last have a mayor that could put two words together without looking like a halfwit! Imagine that.
Pat also had a chance to chat with Emmett, and he really seemed serious about a run.
“I plan to run of Mayor of Chicago for various reasons. First of all, my roots in Chicago go back a very long way. In the 1870s ,my great, great grandfather, P. D. Tyrrell, U.S.S, was the head of the Secret Service, and as the head of the Secret Service broke up a plot that originated in the Hub, a Chicago eatery of low repute, to steal Abraham Lincoln’s body from its crypt, bury it in the Indiana Dunes, and hold it for ransom and the release of counterfeiters notorious in the region. There was also something about counterfeit plates, but P. D. made all this academic. He nabbed them and eventually they were locked up.
For the rest of Pat’s interview, see his …With Both Hands blog.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
For a full bio, please CLICK HERE.