Also it's amusing how Cost equates urban machines with being for the 'rich and powerful' when in fact the machines, corrupt as they were, existed to allow those who would otherwise be shut out of the system a foot into the system. Someone once pointed out that just because the US doesn't have rampant bribery of low level bureaucrats like police officers and customs officials, it doesn't mean the US isn't corrupt. It only means that the rich exclusively benefit from corruption. Low-level corruption at least allows the poor to benefit from corruption as well.
Ah, equal opportunity corruption. I hadn't thought of that one before. 
Seriously? That would prove very nicely just how sheltered and far-right you are. -_-
That was the whole
point of the "machine".
