Who else but Daley, facing his toughest re-election fight from a credible black challenger, could play both the race card and the free-market card and get away with it?

... every time I think he's about to trip, he peels his opponents like grapes, with his teeth.... his veto of the big-box living wage ordinance, pushed by the political left and the unions, unfairly targeting Wal-Mart and other large retail operations, was brilliant politics.
...

"He played us like a fish," said another pro-labor white alderman who refused to flip on the veto vote. "First it was foie gras. Then this. He had it all planned. We look ridiculous."

The aldermen cared about geese and banned foie gras. But their attempts to jack up the minimum wage threatened jobs in minority communities. Ald. Foie Gras himself, Joe Moore (49th), was the same fellow who pushed the big-box ordinance that was vetoed.

Aldermen allowed themselves to be cast as worried more about the feelings of silly geese than about the feelings of poor blacks and Latinos who need jobs and a decent place to shop. Daley hungrily capitalized on their mistake.

"After foie gras, this became the laughingstock of the nation," the mayor told reporters. "That is ridiculous. It is the funniest law they ever passed. Then of course they pass the [aldermanic] pay raise and then they did this ... and made us the laughingstock of the country."

He could have vetoed the foie gras and other ridiculousness. But he didn't.

He used them for bait.