Cut to the chase and rename Chicago to Obama Town.
Mayoral candidate Bill Daley made a surprising proposal Friday: rename the Dan Ryan Expressway on Chicago’s South Side after former President Barack Obama.
“Barack Obama is from Chicago. He owns a home here. This is where the Obama library is based,” Daley said in a statement. “I’d like to see the legislature act on this early next year.”
But a section of Interstate 55, south of the city, was already named after Obama last year — the winner among competing plans from legislators to rename different Illinois highways after him.
Daley, who was the president’s chief of staff in 2011, thinks renaming the expressway after him is more appropriate, said Peter Cunningham, Daley’s spokesman.
But State Rep. La Shawn Ford, (D-Chicago), who proposed the legislation that led to part of I-55 being named after Obama, slammed Daley’s proposal as a “political stunt” and a “ploy to try to cater to black voters.”