They didn’t pay off the right Democrats. Gotta pay, it’s the Chicago Way, now.
See “Doing Business Under Fascism”, by Gunter Reimann, written in 1938.
If you are right, one of those payoffs is surely coming to the local Allegheny County Democrat Party here in Pittsburgh.
They built a HUGE new airport in the 90’s on the promise that US Air would keep a hub here and provide thousands of local jobs. In return the local airport authority would protect them from discount competition.
Of course that plan did not survive first contact with economic reality.
Then 9-11 hit and non-passengers could no longer shop in the Air Mall. So now we have a ridiculously large, debt-ridden, largely empty airport, and a dearth of direct flights to anywhere.
Bailing out their local Democrats is no doubt going to be part of their To Do list here.