A little happiness on a lousy day:

Another anonymous commentator, a man who blogs about Chicago politics and pop culture while identifying himself only as Driftglass, says the mayor’s race is ripe for skewering on social media “because absent of an issue, it’s about personalities. That’s what good humor is about. You don’t hear five-minute routines on TIF funding, but you’re hearing Rahm Emanuel using ‘f—-.’ “

He notes, too, that Chicago’s political system is being shaken up for the first time in decades.

“Other cities have transitions every four to six years. They know how to do it. We don’t. There’s a level of panic at the highest levels of government,” he says. “Add that to the fact that we’re in Chicago, the president’s backyard, and that one of the candidates is a close personal friend, and it’s a circus stuck inside of an opera inside of a blockbuster movie.”

The option for commentators to keep out of the spotlight helps, too.

“I have a civilian life where I deal with people (in business and politics), and I’m trying to find common ground, so I don’t want my politics to play into it,” Driftglass says in a phone interview.

Remaining anonymous, he says, harkens back to the pamphleteers of the Revolutionary War period. “They could say things that they otherwise couldn’t say without losing their heads.”