DePaul University freshman David Krupa scored an impressive victory in Chicago politics on Saturday: Boss Madigan — the most powerful Democrat in Illinois — backed out of a challenge to Krupa’s candidacy for alderman in the Southwest Side’s 13th Ward.

“I am truly humbled to be the first candidate on the ballot to challenge the 13th Ward since 1991,” Krupa, 19, told me at the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners offices on Saturday. “This is a huge defeat for (Michael) Madigan’s organization, and the beginning of the end of boss politics.”

So, the college kid is on the ballot, in a faceoff with Boss Madigan’s silent toady, the bendable Ald. Marty Quinn.

A few political guys mumbled privately that Madigan must be so angry that he might as well fill a burlap bag of the severed heads of a few of his precinct captains and hang them from the statue of the giant Indian on 63rd Street as a warning to all.

“He’s got to be so pissed off,” said a political guy who knows Madigan. “I can’t even think what’s on his mind.”

The feds?

This David and Goliath story went national after my first column on this last week, a saga of machine political overkill that failed, with thousands of false and felonious affidavits possibly carrying felony perjury charges, and Chicago Democrats trying to avoid answering questions about it lest they anger the boss.

READ MORE: A college kid running for 13th Ward alderman gets a lesson in the Chicago Way »

One was Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza, a candidate for mayor with a lot of positive media buzz, who has ties to Madigan’s 13th Ward and Ald. Ed Burke’s 14th Ward. On my podcast “The Chicago Way,” she said she knows nothing.

“I don’t know anything about that,” Mendoza said. “I’m running for mayor. I don’t even know anything about it, straight up. I don’t know what’s going on over there.”

Yeah, sure. OK. Your business is Chicago politics, but you don’t know a thing about that thing in 13.

Yet many know.

“And now the plan is to campaign and beat Marty Quinn and try to take away some of Madigan’s power over the people of the 13th Ward, and start the creation of a newer and cleaner political landscape,” Krupa said. “What we have to do is take away some of Madigan’s puppets and begin to elect people that Madigan does not control.”

Whether Krupa will beat Madigan’s army at the polls is a long shot. But it was a long shot that he’d ever get on the ballot. And now he’s on the ballot, and he’s got a GoFundMe account, and politicos across the U.S. — except for Mendoza — know his name.

Madigan, the speaker of the Illinois House, the longest-serving speaker in American history, chairman of the Illinois Democrats and owner of a lucrative private law practice that makes millions reducing the property taxes of wealthy Democrats and Republican who own downtown real estate, is not used to losing.

I asked Michael Dorf, Krupa’s savvy election lawyer, so how does it feel to beat the machine?

“It feels pretty good, it feels great in fact,” Dorf said. “I got a call about 11 o’clock in the morning from Mike Kasper (13th Ward attorney), and he said they were withdrawing their objections to Krupa’s candidacy. He said, ‘You won.’ ”

Krupa needed 473 valid signatures of ward residents to get on the ballot. He filed 1,729 signatures with the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners. He earlier said he filed 1,703 but missed a page of signatures.

A crew of mysterious political workers — perhaps they were Buddhist monks, or the gentle sun people known as the Eloi, or maybe Madigan precinct captains — filed 2,796 petitions of revocation of signature. That means 2,796 ward residents filed legal affidavits that they wanted their signatures taken off Krupa’s petitions.

KASS: Even a Daley says Boss Madigan has gone too far trying to crush DePaul freshman in 13th Ward »

The Madigan men filed 187 affidavits of revocation matching Krupa signatures. But Dorf, a progressive who’d done election work for the late Mayor Harold Washington and former President Barack Obama, put in a Freedom of Information Act request asking the board to give him all the revocations affidavits that were filed.

All 2,796 of them.

“And that’s where the fraud comes in, that’s where the felonies come in,” Dorf said. “Almost 2,800 affidavits were filed. But only 1,726 people signed petitions for Krupa. And of the 2,800 affidavits, the 13th Ward could only find 187 signatures that matched.

Subtract 187 from 2,796 and you get 2,609 — that’s a lot of possible felonies, either perjury or voter intimidation. In his filings to the elections board, Dorf made mention of linguini.

“I love linguini,” Dorf told me. “When you test pasta, don’t you throw a strand of linguini against the wall to see if it sticks? Well, they took 2,800 affidavits, threw them against the wall and found that only 187 stuck.”

Dorf thinks Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx should investigate. She sat with the Tribune Editorial Board the other day. I wasn't able to attend.

“This is an intriguing story,” Foxx told other board members. “We’re eager for the conversation.” She said she’d typically partner with some other agency to investigate. “I just can’t have John’s column.”

I’m flattered that she reads me. But she doesn’t need my column. All she’s got to do is pick up the phone, call the elections board and tell them to send the documents over.

“Or she can come here and get them,” said a board official. “They’ve been waiting for her for more than a week.”

Listen to "The Chicago Way" podcast with John Kass and Jeff Carlin — at www.wgnradio.com/category/wgn-plus/thechicagoway.

jskass@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @John_Kass