Chicago Politics Redux...

Why does this not come as a surprise?

From USA Today, no less.

Counties that supported Obama last year have reaped twice as much money per person from the administration's $787 billion economic stimulus package as those that voted for his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, a USA TODAY analysis of government disclosure and accounting records shows.

This takes the prize for naivete:

Investigators who track the stimulus are skeptical that political considerations could be at work. The imbalance is so pronounced — and the aid so far from complete — that it would be almost inconceivable for it to be the result of political tinkering, says Adam Hughes, the director of federal fiscal policy for the non-profit OMB Watch. "Even if they wanted to, I don't think the administration has enough people in place yet to actually do that," he says.

"Most of what they're doing at this point is just stamping the checks and sending them out," Hughes says.

Of course, it may all be just accidental:

The imbalance didn't start with the stimulus. From 2005 through 2007, the counties that later voted for Obama collected about 50% more government aid than those that supported McCain, according to spending reports from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Well, is that a surprise?

The danger here, of course, is that this becomes institutionalized and used to create tensions between population groups that only government intervention can resolve: that is, of course, how Chicago politics works. Watch for this being done deliberately, hence, pitting one group against the other as the result of government policy, then see how suddenly a couple of the good old boys magically resolve the problem...