Politics: Chicago Style

We consider Obama to be a 'Chicago Style' politician. Nick Schulz at USA Today says we do not know Chicago Politics:

Is Obama a Chicago-style pol? If only.
President Obama has been accused by his critics of practicing a kind of "Chicago-style" politics. By this they mean winning political fights with calculated deal-cutting, ruthless backroom maneuvering, manipulation of ethnic sensibilities and thuggish machine politics. The gripe has never been totally fair to the president and his team (despite his Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel's now-famous line about never letting a crisis go to waste).

Throughout history, Chicago-style politics certainly had its ugly and seamy side. But it also has had some practical virtues � namely, the ability to squash intractable political problems before they corrode public spirit.

If any evidence were ever needed that the president doesn't practice Chicago-style politics, it's with the Ground Zero mosque controversy. Here's how a real Chicago pol might have dealt with it.

The rest of the article has an excellent analysis of Chicago Style v/s Obama Style and highlights how one works and how the other is dysfunctional. Comments are worth reading too -- almost all agreeing with Obama's incompetence in handling the Mosque.