Five more days ‘til we bring on the mass confusion we call Election Day

When it comes to the upcoming mayoral election Chicago faces, there’s only one prediction I feel comfortable about making – an overwhelming majority of the electorate is going to feel nothing but contempt with the outcome.

Our new mayor will be … ?

Tuesday is the day we will have the vote. With 14 people in the running and no one showing signs of taking overwhelming support, it’s ever so likely that no one will get a majority – which means we’ll have the “run-off” that will require Tuesday’s top two vote-getters to take each other on.

I’M NOT ABOUT to make a solid prediction about the victor. But I’ll say I won’t be surprised if the two candidates who qualify wind up with a combined tally of some 33 percent.

With some 67 percent people being those who didn't want either of the two to prevail, but couldn't agree amongst the remaining 12 candidates for any one of them to prevail.

The April 2 run-off could wind up something along the lines of the 2015 run-off, which was between Mayor Rahm Emanuel and now-Rep. Jesus Garcia, D-Ill., who basically kept the support he had during the initial election, with Emanuel managing to get the support of everyone else.

Or maybe it could be that many of the people who took the time to support someone like Lori Lightfoot, Susana Mendoza, Amara Enyia or Garry McCarthy will come to the conclusion they can’t back anybody else, and just won’t bother casting ballots in the April run-off.

Will McCarthy and Lightfoot (below) … 

THIS COULD EASILY be the municipal election cycle that has significant interest amongst the electorate, but winds up with a ridiculously-low voter turnout.

Which could mean four more years of listening to voters rant and rage about how “it’s not my fault” that Mayor Lamebrain managed to get elected which depending on the mindset of the particular voter, could wind up being used as a descriptive for just about anybody.

It could definitely be an interesting outcome for our municipal elections. It most definitely won’t be an election cycle that inspires the masses.

If there really will be a theme to the way people will cast their votes come Tuesday, it may be the idea that people will have to decide if we want a return to the days of a “Mayor Daley” in charge.

… be amongst top two on Tuesday?

AS IN AN establishment-oriented, business-motivated guy whose focus will be on the strengthening of the downtown business district. Keep “the Loop” strong, and it will hold up the city as a whole.

A concept that will offend those people who’d rather see enhanced investment in the neighborhoods, feeling that Chicago is only as strong as its weakest, most-vulnerable neighborhood.

More likely, we’re going to see that Chicagoans are split between these premises. Further reflected by the fact that no one candidate is dominating the polls and showing signs that they’re capable of taking a majority of support when people cast their ballots on Tuesday.

In fact, the real political tale of the near future may well be to see which of the 12 ‘losers’ manage to resurrect themselves for future elections – creating the impression that we’d have been better off picking them for mayor in ’19 so as to avoid the calamity they’re bound to claim the city will face by 2023.

ALTHOUGH THERE WAS one intriguing moment Tuesday when WTTW-TV conducted another candidate forum – one for the so-called lesser candidates in the running. The question: “Ketchup on a hot dog?”

FORD: Forevermore remembered for ketchup?

Candidate LaShawn Ford may well have killed himself politically when he said, “yes,” to which Lori Lightfoot responded to him, “There’s the exit. Never, never, never!”

As one who personally doesn’t put ketchup on anything I eat, I couldn’t help but admire Lightfoot’s enthusiastic retort.

Although sadly enough for the state representative from the West Side, his response may well be the only reason people remember his campaign – and why he’s likely to be the one who finishes 14^th and last in the voter tally on Tuesday.

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