Newsweek has a web exclusive interview with Chicago mayor Richard Daley well worth a read. Daley, who's running for an unprecedented sixth term, has been taking on not only his own City Council, but city councils nationwide over local attempts to exert control over mega box store wages. He's now calling for a national minimum wage that can't be increased locally to ensure cities remain competitive in spite of populist councils, saying that, "That has to be increased (nationally) because if we increase ours and no one increases theirs in the suburban area, we're up here and you're down there."

Locally, he vetoed a bill that would have required retailers with at least $1 billion a year in sales and with stores of at least 90,000 square feet to pay their employees at least $10 an hour in wages and $3 an hour in benefits by 2010. Though the city's Alderman passed the bill by a veto-proof margin, Daley managed to twist enough arms to swing four Council votes and avoid an override. As it is, though, he was forced to cast the first veto of his 17 years as mayor, a sign of potential political weakness coming into next year's elections.

Daley, whose likely opponents include Jesse Jackson Jr., looks to be in for a tough run. His wage stance, however sensible, is not popular. He's also been emrboiled (though not himself charged) in an ongoing federal corruption probe run by U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald (of Valerie Plame fame) that's already brought down two top aides, and led to the conviction of 20 city employees for taking bribes in exchange for transporation contracts. Fitzgerald has also charged that a heroin operation was operating out of a city water-filtration plant, and criticized Chicago as a culture "where people are being scored not on the merits but by whom they know or what clout they have." In the meantime, the Cook County Republican Party is offering a $10,000 bounty in exchange for information that leads to Daley's conviction.