Can We Blame Robert Halpin for Asian Carp?

By JoshMogerman in News on Dec 4, 2010 8:00PM

It seems like we are always looking for scapegoats. This week, in the wake of a decision in the Great Lakes States’ Asian carp court dustup, an unlikely figure has stepped up to take the blame for Lake Michigan's most-hyped invader: Robert Halpin, Chicago’s most infamous renter and Mayoral candidate.

...OK, his distant family anyway...

Sun-Times namedropper Michael Sneed shares a very weird note from “Rahm Emanuel’s grumpy tenant" (her description, not ours) proudly outlining the work of Candidate Halpin’s great grandfather more than a century ago. It seems he is a bit of a namedropper too---calling out his relative’s association with Chicago’s historic heavyweight and journalistic giant, Joseph Medill. In the last turn of the century, Medill hired Halpin’s great grandfather, Richard Prendergast, to litigate the case that eventually reversed the Chicago River by connecting it to the MIssissippi River system (also inadvertently opening a path for the carp into Lake Michigan). A proud Halpin notes that Prendergast passed on invitations to run for Mayor, choosing instead to head the Democratic Party and the Metropolitan Sanitary District.

We aren’t sure how this bolsters Halpin’s mayoral bona fides, but it is interesting to think that a relative of the guy who helped open the door to the whole Asian carp mess is now running for a position which could end up being integral to its solution. Perhaps it was fate that led him to rent Rahm’s house…