Political Satire: Having trouble surviving these times? You’re not alone. Join us in columnist John F. Di Leo’s exploration of an alternate universe, where we imagine the impossible:
An idealistic teenager, living in the 51st ward of a fictional city in middle America, volunteers at the local party headquarters, and learns a lesson or two about modern urban politics.
Little Pavel Brings Kringle
By John F. Di Leo
“Hello, everybody! Hope you’re all hungry!”
Pavel bounded into 51st Ward Democratic Party Headquarters with unusually high spirits, even for him. He waited until every eye in the room – Pockets, the Boss, the old ladies manning the phones along the wall – was upon him as he approached the snack table. With flourish, he pulled the three cardboard trays that he’d been carefully carrying – horizontally – out of their bag and set them all down. “Anybody have a sweet tooth? I brought Kringle!”
Committeeman William Marcy – known as the Boss – resplendent as usual in his three-piece tweed suit – looked down at the flat rings and said “Uh, Pavel, I don’t think you should have stacked them. Looks like they’ve been flattened.”
Lillian and Mildred rolled their eyes at each other. “They’re supposed to be flat, Boss! Haven’t you ever had kringle?” asked Lillian, as they rushed to the table with the other ladies and started slicing. “Don’t you ever get out of Chicago?”
An excellent question. No, the Boss hardly ever left Chicago, just as Chicago hardly ever left him. The Chicago Way was part of his nature – he was raised in the Machine, and saw no reason to change now, at this late date in his life. Outside of the occasional party convention, he rarely ventured past the Chicago city limits, and he liked it that way.
“What’ll you have, Boss?” Pavel stood ready with a knife and a plate. “Raspberry, apple, or pecan?” He had already sliced a thin sample of each one on a plate for Pockets.
The Boss motioned toward the raspberry, and Pavel finished serving before settling down to some himself.
Pockets noticed the Boss brighten at the first taste. “Pretty good, eh Boss?” said Pockets, motioning for Pavel to slice him some more pecan. “You really never had kringle before?”
“No, where are they from?”
Pavel answered “Well, they claim the recipe comes from Denmark, but we get them from Wisconsin! My cousins sell real estate in southeast Wisconsin, so whenever they come down to visit, they bring kringle. Good, huh?”
The Boss’ face had fallen as fast at the sound of Wisconsin as it had perked up at the first taste. “Oh, well… sorry Pavel; we’re just a little glum about Wisconsin these days, that’s all.”
As the ladies returned to the phone bank on the far wall, the Boss motioned for Pavel and his Deputy Committeeman, known as “Pockets,” to come into his office. And to bring one of the kringles. While they were moving into the soundproof room, Pavel headed over to the refrigerator to pick up a couple of beers for the men, and a diet soda for himself. Even if they had allowed him to drink – and who knows, they probably would – he wanted to stay sober for these discussions. Our young hero had a lot of learning to do.
“What do you know about Wisconsin, Pavel?” asked the Boss, as they settled in to talk safely, with the door closed. “In general?”
Pavel Syerov, the scion of a long line of shop stewards, was careful in his reply. “Good union state, split politically, last governor was one of us, new one isn’t… big fight in Madison over the budget… they make a good kringle… lots of cheddar and beer…”
As usual, the Boss took control of the conversation when Pavel started to be silly. He had a ward to run; if he was going to take a minute to help educate the kid that Pockets seemed to think had a future in politics, he sure wasn’t going to waste time talking about Wisconsin cheese.
So he began. “Pockets has talked to you about Wisconsin’s onsite registration, right?” Pockets nodded yes, and hoisted his beer in a salute. “Okay,” continued the Boss, “so that’s the cornerstone of our Wisconsin methods. We keep the rolls padded with new voters all the time, because on election day, you like a human being to walk in with something – a piece of mail, a student ID, a business card, letterhead, even an alleged neighbor to vouch for you. The Republicans can’t stop us, because there’s no automatic distrust there. Ya know how in Chicago, we expect everybody to register at least a month before the election? They don’t expect it there, since everybody knows about the onsite registration provision. As long as we have this, we figure, we can’t lose.”
Pockets joined in here. “O’ course, Paully, that’s not to say that’s our only gimmick in Wisconsin. We’ve had ACORN and others like ‘em for years, paddin’ the rolls, filing thousands and thousands of nonexistent voters. We use a lot of ‘em for absentee votes, and so that when we bus in some homeless bums or Illinoisans, they have names to give so they can vote. I’m not sayin’ they’re as good at that sort of thing as they are down in New Orleans, but it’s a tactic, and ya know, every little bit adds up!”
The Boss nodded. “Now, as I say, the onsite registration – lacking any requirement for a real ID – is the critical keystone of the operation. Everything else is possible because of that. And they’ve got a lot of ‘everything else’ going on up there, some of it pretty darned clever.”
“Like what, Boss?” Pavel was indeed interested; in the months he’d been helping out at 51st Ward HQ, he figured he must have heard about every possible kind of vote fraud, whether it was actually practiced here in Chicago or not.
The Boss sat back and lit up a cigar. “Wisconsin’s full of summer cabins, hunting cabins, second homes for Chicagoans, up in the little towns and fishing lakes. A lot of them never really have a resident to speak of – their owners are in Milwaukee, Madison, Chicago, with their own real home addresses to vote from, and some of them are vacant because of the recession, or have been vacant for years – but some of ‘em get registered anyway, and once they’re registered, that’s a legitimate name and address you can use, either by absentee, or early voting, or in person on election day. If we ever really lose control of the election apparatus of the state, we could lose all that.”
Now, Pockets chimed in. “Wisconsin’s full of Indian reservations; some of ‘em have a close relationship with the last governor. They owned Doyle, outright; practically the first thing he did when he took office was to cut ‘em a longtime sweetheart deal for their casinos and tax contributions. I’m not sayin’ they’re as good at this as they are up in Minnesota and South Dakota, but we certainly make the most of our friends on the reservations, that’s all I’m sayin’!””
“But the impressive stuff, Pavel,” said the Boss, “is the stuff they’re just beginning. They’ve added these Remote Voting Locations in recent years. Our people – sometimes the candidate, sometimes an unrelated civic group we organize to keep it separate from the party – then put on rallies across the street. We’ll give ‘em a drink and an election guide, and they can cross the street and vote.”
“I thought that plying voters with alcohol was illegal,” asked Pavel.
“Only in the lawbooks, Paully,” answered Pockets. “What they don’t know, won’t hurt ‘em.”
The Boss elaborated. “The party really thinks this is the wave of the future. We can throw a rally – just look at Paul Wellstone’s funeral up in the Twin Cities a few years ago! We have the rockstars on our side; we can put on a heck of a concert. And then they can stream right out from our tent into the entrance to the remote voting locations. A beautiful tactic!”
“That used to be a standard method of holding elections in the founding era, didn’t it?” asked Pavel. “I remember reading about how most candidates brought rum or whiskey to the polling places all day, and how James Madison lost his first election because he refused to participate. He had a change of heart for the next election, of course; he wanted to win that time!”
Before Pockets could get the words out that he’d never heard about that, the Boss cut in with “yes, that’s right, but it used to be banned in Wisconsin. They don’t even let you give away a comb with a candidate’s name on it, or they think it’s improper electioneering. So the inroads we’ve made in Wisconsin have been particularly impressive, considering the backdrop of LaFollette style squeaky-clean ideals. Now we’ve got the concerts, performance art events, all sorts of things, all to attract the right kind of people to the voting centers.”
“Anyway,” continued the Boss, “the GOP in Madison has been working hard on some anti-fraud legislation to mandate Real ID, to ban our rallies next to polling places, and other things like that. Tuesday was kind of a 50/50 day for us, on this front… State Rep Jeff Stone, head of the elections committee in Madison, was up for Milwaukee County Executive (Governor Walker’s old job). He lost, but that means he’ll still be in Madison in the Assembly, working hard to curtail our enhanced voting techniques.”
Pavel listened as Pockets and the Boss ticked off more and more techniques, all used in Wisconsin – some large, some small, but as he said, they all added up.
- The Boss mentioned the insistence on counting “provisional ballots” on election night and mixing them together, so there’s no way to remove them if a subsequent verification check comes in as negative.
- Pockets mentioned the “gifts for votes” and “gifts for registering” programs that had surfaced in Racine, Kenosha and Madison throughout the 2000s… free ice cream in Madison, free food and bingo in Racine in 2000 and 2004 (the Boss remembered that they even called that scandal “Kringlegate”… that’s where the Boss had heard that term before!)
- The Boss explained the successful resistance to removing bad names from the lists, on the theory that it costs too much; there just isn’t the money to take the bad names off the lists, so they remain, ripe for the plucking when needed.
- Pockets mentioned the college students who vote not only at home, but at college too, sometimes even in multiple states (a lot of Wisconsinites who had never set foot in Iowa before showed up in the 2008 caucuses to vote for Obama!)… the Republicans want to demand a driver’s license or passport, while the Democrats insist that a student ID should be good enough (at this, the usually serious Boss burst out laughing, as he pointed to a picture of his son, who had lived in six different dorms and off-campus apartments his freshman year alone!).
- The Boss reminded him of the scandals of the 2000 presidential election, in which New York liberals rewarded homeless people with cigarette packs for casting ballots, in what became notorious as “Smokes for Votes.”
- Between bites of kringle, Pockets tried to explain how the Help America Vote Act mandates a routine purge of voting rolls after comparison with Motor Vehicles records, but they’ve managed to resist much of it… 18,000 mailers came back as “returned to sender” after the 2010 primary, but they managed to put off doing the purge until after the fall election.
- The Boss started to mention how helpful the military disenfranchisement had been, thanks to Wisconsin’s late primary and Governor Doyle’s refusal to obey the MOVE Act, but he changed the subject when he noticed Pockets’ reaction.
“Hey, how about getting a couple of grenades for us, son? Get yourself a soda while you’re in there.”
As Pavel returned with the longnecks, he asked “so how did all this help us in the spring 2011 election? Did we use these tactics, and did they work?”
Both men signed, and after a long moment, Pockets was first to answer. “They did everything they could. Even used some sloppy tactics… in Madison, they ran some real risks… casting over 10,000 ballots that only had the state supreme court race on them, not even the high profile county executive race.”
“Is that unlikely, Pockets?”
“Unlikely?!” thundered the Boss. “It’s idiotic! Nobody’s gonna believe that. There could be a few people who only care about the Prosser/Kloppenburg race… a few supreme court junkies or lawyers… but 10,000? Come one. You could believe the reverse – people caring about the county exec but not the court – but nobody, NOBODY, believes that these undervotes are remotely possible.”
“That’s the thing, Paully,” continued Pockets as the Boss tried to calm down, “we like to claim that the GOP steals elections, ya know? But when one of our counties goes and does something stupid like this, we don’t dare bring up the subject. It’s just too obvious; you have to avoid the whole subject.”
The Boss put down his beer. “We’ve done everything we could to Wisconsin. We had ACORN up there for years, making sure there were names to vote whenever we needed them… we have every technique available, a pliable union that does what we tell them… everything should come into line. Our people watch the returns, just like old man Daley did in the old days, and see how many votes we need from Milwaukee and Madison to make up for the strongholds… You never want to make it too obvious, you just stay a little ahead, just a little, knowing we’ll always win in a recount…”
“So what went wrong, Boss?” asked Pavel. He pressed on. “How come we still lost, and Prosser is staying on the court?”
“Because of that gal in Waukesha County. She missed a town, a whole town… Waukesha County released its numbers without Brookfield’s. Everybody thought that Waukesha was in; we knew how many we needed, and I’m sure everybody thought we were done. Then on Thursday, when we were in recount mode for sure, came the news that Brookfield’s numbers were in the county, they just hadn’t been reported as part of the county numbers. A net gain of 7600 or so for Prosser… too late for any of our tactics to make up for it.”
Pavel sat back, stunned. “You mean, they used our own trick back on us?”
“No, not at all,” answered Pockets. “The Brookfield votes are legit votes; the GOP didn’t make ‘em up.”
“I know,” said Pavel, “but they held them back right? Held them back just like Daley held back Chicago’s in 1960 until he knew how many more he needed to create for JFK. Since Waukesha held these back, even though it was just a mistake, the result was that we were unable to steal as many as we would have if we’d known about them. It was like a game of chicken; they held their votes longer than we held ours, and our best guess turned out to be too low! If it was intentional on the part of the Waukesha clerk, it was brilliant!”
“Yeah,” replied the Boss. “I guess so. But it wasn’t intentional. It was clearly just a mistake.”
“So? In a way, that’s just that much cooler.” Pavel chuckled. “They beat our tactics just by being old-fashioned and slow. Gotta give ‘em credit; it worked for them!”
The Boss looked almost accusingly at the boy. “I don’t think you appreciate the gravity of this situation, young man. We were counting on their supreme court to stop the Walker agenda. This is bad for us, very bad.”
Pavel smiled and said “Oh I understand. And I’m with you totally (of course!). I’m just gaining some respect for the system, from my months with you guys, and I’m learning to appreciate tactics, I guess. I’m probably just a little buzzed from all this sugar. Want some more kringle, guys?”
As both old pols patted their stomachs and shook their heads, Pavel gathered up the remainders and took his leave of the Boss’ soundproof office, leaving them to stew on their frustration with their neighbors to the north. They all knew that if Prosser was ahead by some 7500 votes, after all the Democrat fraud, he had probably really won by fifteen or twenty thousand. Maybe not a landslide, but certainly a blowout. Not at all what they were hoping for this spring!
Pavel put the kringles back on the main snack table for the ladies on the phones, and headed back outside, to the cool, crisp Chicago spring evening and his walk home.
What Pavel hadn’t told the old pols, of course, was that his relatives had brought down the kringles specifically for the purpose of celebrating that victory; they’d been walking precincts for Prosser for weeks.
No, he couldn’t tell Pockets and the Boss a thing like that. Unfair though it might seem, he knew that this whole “political education” thing that he was working on would really have to stay completely one-sided. As long as he wanted to learn how they do things in Chicago, he couldn’t let his trusting friends suspect that his loyalties were anything short of total.
And he realized for the first time how severe an error it had been for the new administration in Madison to postpone the Real ID votes until after this election. It clearly should have been their first act this term, the second they took their oaths of office. The Wisconsin GOP lucked out in April, 2011, and appears to have dodged one heck of a bullet, thought the lad. He hoped they wouldn’t let it be postponed any more. As his parents, the recovering shop stewards, always told him, as long as there is vote fraud, no other reforms are really possible at all.
Copyright 2011-2024 John F. Di Leo
This is a work of fiction, and any similarity with any person, living or dead, is unintentional. The Tales of Little Pavel were originally published in serial form in Illinois Review, from 2010 through 2016, and the full collection of stories about Little Pavel and the denizens of the 51st Ward is available in paperback or eBook, exclusively from Amazon. Republished with permission.
As an actor performing in Chicagoland theatre, John will be featured as “Old Joe” Boyd in the musical comedy “Damn Yankees” at St. Stephen Protomartyr in Des Plaines, IL, only on Fridays, March 1 and 8, 2024.
John F. Di Leo is a Chicagoland-based international transportation and trade compliance professional and consultant. A onetime Milwaukee County Republican Party chairman, he has been writing a regular column for Illinois Review since 2009. His book on vote fraud (The Tales of Little Pavel) and his political satires on the current administration (Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volumes I and II) are available only on Amazon, in either paperback or eBook. His latest book, “Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volume Three,” was just published in November, 2023.
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