O'Connor the Younger

Most people on Grant Street expect Corey O'Connor to win his dad's former city council seat pretty easily, whether or not he has to run against incumbent Doug Shields. Perhaps weary of a city dominated by names like Wagner, Orie, Costa, Flaherty, Ravenstahl and so on, Chad Hermann has a problem with the sense of entitlement surrounding the 26-year-old lad:

But if that magistrate seat disappears, and Councilman Shields declines to run for another seat against an incumbent he knows and describes as a good man and so run for the seat he still currently holds, that would leave Master O’Connor to run against an incumbent he knows and describes as a friend. An incumbent who served for 11 years as Bob O'Connor's chief of staff before being elected to succeed him on City Council. An incumbent who served two terms as City Council President, and whose record of service and dedication to his city and to his constituents — whether or not you agree with his positions, or his occasional rhetorical excesses — is beyond reproach.

The irony of that challenge would, I suspect be lost on him. As would the irony of this disrespect:

Mr. O’Connor said he and Mr. Shields had discussed their potentially conflicting ambitions in a meeting late last week. Since then, he said he had not spoke to the councilman again before making his announcement.

But then, untoward, outsized senses of entitlement are a mighty fine defense against a sense of irony. And most everything else.

If one thing in this process is clear, it is that Master O’Connor thinks himself entitled to that council seat, and to everything else that once was his father’s. Including his political war chest:

Mr. O’Connor will have the benefit of the campaign funds left over from the late mayor’s last bid for office.