No strike for Chicago school teachers! No pennant (not yet) for the Cubs

Believe it or not, something positive was happening in the early hours of Tuesday – even though I’m sure that segment of our city’s society determined to root for the Chicago Cubs thinks it was a miserable time.
 

LEWIS: Reached a late-night deal w/ schools

The Chicago Teachers Union was actually reaching an agreement with the Chicago Public Schools toward a new contract for public school faculty.

TUESDAY HAD BEEN the strike date previously set, meaning there was a good chance that this would have been the day in which we’d have to endure the sight of teachers walking the picket line, union President Karen Lewis taking the name of Rahm Emanuel in vain, and parents trying to figure out what to do with their kids while they go to work.

Which I’m sure would have added to the sense of depression that the Cubs-fan segment of our city would have felt; after seeing the would-be heroics of Jake Arietta and Kris Bryant erased in what became a 6-5 loss to the San Francisco Giants that meant the Cubs would have to wait a day or two before seeing if they advance in the National League playoffs.

It really was a surprise moment – the teachers deciding not to take to the picket lines, that is. I had braced myself for the thought of outraged labor rhetoric to be spewed in coming days as long-lasting tensions would come pouring out.

Heck, it was around 10 p.m. that Lewis was making public statements saying we should expect the worst to happen. Only for the decision to be made about Midnight that the sides were close enough that there would be no need for picket lines – or a strike.

OF COURSE, UNION officials made it be known that the agreement was merely a “tentative” one, meaning that things could still fall apart.

“A tentative agreement is not a final contract,” union officials said in a midnight statement. “Every active member of the Chicago Teachers Union will have an opportunity to review and vote on the agreement before a contract is ratified.”

 

EMANUEL: Mayor spared aggravation

It wasn’t sure when the union’s House of Delegates, then the full union, would take the votes that would formally approve a contract on their part.

But it ought to give us a sigh of relief that we’re not going to have to endure the rigors of a teachers’ strike in Chicago – which would have caused so many frayed tempers and I’m sure would have given pleasure to no one.

EXCEPT MAYBE DONALD Trump, who would have gleefully used it as a rhetorical excuse to bash us about some more. Heck, it’s not like anyone here was going to vote for the goober. What does he have to lose?

For the record, the agreement is for a four-year contract, meaning that Emanuel will be able to get through the rest of his current mayoral term without having labor strife from the teachers’ union. He can focus on all the other entities that want to demean him for their own various reasons.

The offer includes cost-of-living increases of 2 percent and 2.5 percent in the two final years of the deal, and does not require teachers to pay a larger share to cover the cost of their eventual pensions. Although people hired to teach in the Chicago Public Schools in the future will have to pay a larger share of their pensions. Which I’m sure they view as a problem to deal with in the future, so long as the current faculty are protected.

Money to cover the cost of the slight pay raise and pension expenses will come from tax increment finance district funds made available by the city, which Cook County Clerk David Orr said was "a short-term fix" and that, "City Hall continues to dodge a fundamental problem with TIFs."

FOR HIS PART, Emanuel acted pleased, particularly by the fact he won’t have all those p-o’ed parents to deal with. “Students across Chicago will be in school this morning and on the path to a stronger and brighter future,” the mayor told reporter-types Tuesday morning at City Hall.

 

The source of Wrigleyville's aggravation Tuesday

That part about “stronger and brighter” might be a touch of exaggeration. But I don’t doubt the sincerity of pleasure at not having the Chicago schools in the national attention because of a teachers’ strike.

Who knows? It may even turn out that not having to deal with a strike will help some of those Cubs fan-types of people deal with the fact their favorite ball club didn’t clinch its spot Monday in the next round of the National League playoffs – even though they jumped out to an early lead with that Arietta home run.

And now, the schoolchildren of Chicago will be able to discuss Monday night’s victory in the schoolyards of the city – that is, if they were even capable of staying up that late on a school night, just to watch a ball game.

  -30-

EDITOR'S NOTE: Hopefully, by now you've figured out where to find Channel FS1. Otherwise known as Fox Sports on your cable television lineup. And if you haven't keep in mind that maybe you're being spared much anguish watching ballgames like the one Monday night.

Who’d have thought Rauner would be a unifier between mayor and schools

On the surface, it would seem that Gov. Bruce Rauner has served a practical purpose with his trash talk earlier this week about the need for state government to take control of the Chicago Public Schools.

Has Rauner had a role ...

Because now it puts both Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the Chicago Teachers Union on the same side, so to speak. The two factions that historically have had trouble getting along continue to talk toward negotiating a new contract for public school educators.

JUST THIS WEEK, union President Karen Lewis (who considered running against Emanuel in last year’s election cycle) said progress is being made during negotiations. There may actually be a contract agreement in coming weeks.

We may not have the teacher strike that many had feared would kill off the public school structure as we know it. Although the 227 non-teachers who learned Friday they're being laid off and the 180 vacant positions that now will never be filled will be a blow to the schools.

Now maybe it’s overly simplistic to say that the governor is responsible for these two long-hostile factions to be able to come to common ground. I certainly doubt Rauner would intend to do any such thing.

His goals toward undermining organized labor within government and public service entities certainly benefit if the mayor and the teachers union are continually sniping at each other.

BUT A SITUATION where Rauner is continually lambasting the schools, and contending that it is the mayor’s oversight of them that is to blame certainly has the two now facing a common enemy.

... in making Karen Lewis and the mayor ...

Let’s be honest. The Chicago Public Schools are a mess. They have been for many years, largely due to neglect. The predominant attitude among many Chicago area people with kids is either to leave the city proper when the kids get old enough for school, or to make arrangements for the kids to attend private – often Catholic – schools.

The Chicago Public Schools often become the choice of those people who have no other options for their kids. Which is a shame.

Despite what Ted Cruz’ father said recently about the concept of public education being “communist,” there really is the sense that every kid ought to have the option of an education.

EVEN THOUGH THE great shame of educating young people is that they often are too immature to appreciate the need, and let it go to waste.

... less hostile toward each other?

So if there winds up being a political takeover of the schools (unlikely, since I think many political people will reject the idea with a knee-jerk reaction) or a strike, it will be the young people who suffer.

Even though I suspect many parents merely view the public schools as a baby-sitting service for their kids while they attend work during the day.

No matter what Karen Lewis says, there could still be a strike. Who knows what kind of snub or gaffe could be spoken by someone in coming days or weeks that eliminates the goodwill that has built up in recent weeks.

I ALSO COULDN’T help but notice news reports where Lewis indicated that schools CEO Forrest Claypool was actually in New York hitting the financial markets trying to sell bonds as a way of raising money to keep the Chicago schools afloat.

It may be a financial scheme. Or a serious plan to revamp the current situation without the political alternatives put forth by Rauner that primarily serve the governor’s own partisan political desires.

Could there be a solution to a situation that has the makings of a mess of historic proportions for our public school system?

And could it turn out that the Chicago school mess that some figured would devastate Emanuel just as much as all the flak over all the police slayings of young black men in the past couple of years wind up resulting in a new contract that could end up revamping some political reputations?

  -30-

Emanuel/Lewis could get U-G-L-Yer; could Chuy reputation be the winner?

The smartaleck in me wonders if Jesus Garcia is getting miffed that the contract talks by the Chicago Public Schools and the teacher’s union didn’t get heated up prior to Election Day.

Because with the way the two sides are showing that it will take a political miracle for them to agree on a deal, I wonder if that could have been enough of a factor get get Garcia’s mayoral aspirations the additional votes to close what was a 56-44 percent gap in the electoral turnout.

NOT THAT I think any of the people who wound up voting for Rahm Emanuel’s re-election could have been swayed into backing Garcia’s mayoral campaign. But could it have motivated more of the roughly three-fifths of registered voters who didn’t bother to vote to take some sort of action?

Could we now be dealing with “Mayor-elect Jesus Garcia” if the contract talks had become more of an issue prior to April 7?

That thought popped into my mind this week when I learned that the Chicago Teachers Union filed an unfair labor practices complaint with the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board.

It seems the Chicago Public Schools has asked the teachers to take a pay cut, supposedly to avoid the possibility of layoffs. The union has called that pay cut proposal an insult.

THE PAY CUT is allegedly necessary to come up with the money the district needs to cover a larger share of the cost of covering pension payments for teacher retirement programs – supposedly a 7 percent cut in the amount of paychecks the teachers currently receive.

It’s coming across that the Chicago Public Schools wants help from its labor in terms of addressing the financial problems that now face District 299 (a.k.a., the city’s public schools system).

The current contract expires June 30, but I don’t think there’s anybody out there who expects the two sides to suddenly come to terms and meet that deadline.

We’re likely to see continued talks throughout the summer months, then the possibility of wondering if the schools will open on time (and stay open) for the 2015-16 academic year.

BECAUSE THE TWO sides have had several sessions dating back to November, yet there doesn’t seem to be anything in the way of progress. The Emanuel mayoral administration is likely go to into the local history books as the one that continually provokes strikes from its teachers.

Unlike the Richard M. Daley administration that managed to go for decades without labor disputes.

Now I can already hear the rants of certain types of people (the ones who think the City Council was disrespectful to Gov. Bruce Rauner by immediately passing their anti-turnaround measure after the governor urged them to support it) who are going to claim that the unions ARE the problem and that we’d all be better off if we’d realize that employers should be able to give us what they think is proper.

But this desire to advance oneself and look out for our interests IS the “American Way,” so to speak.

I CAN’T REALLY fault the teachers union officials who are following the lead of union President Karen Lewis, who this week said she believed the public schools’ negotiating tactics are “reactionary and retaliatory” for past grievances.

Even though I’m sure some people would argue they are merely examples of Rahm being Rahm. And I mean the overly-profane Emanuel; not the nice, soft, fuzzy Rahm who tried creeping up in the campaign commercials while talking about how incompetent a person Garcia is.

Well, Election Day is past. We have the officials we have. Those people who care about Garcia’s future are likely to focus on the talk that he will run for something (most likely a Congressional seat) come the 2016 election cycle.

Although I do wonder if he could wind up getting a boost in such a campaign if the teacher contract talks do wind up resulting in picket lines for a second time in four years. Sort of a “Who’s not qualified now?” type of vote for Chuy against whomever he winds up challenging!

  -30-

Kentucky vs. Rahm – whose “victory” was likely more predictable?

Which storyline is more likely to be remembered for time to come – the near victory of Notre Dame over Kentucky in the NCAA men’s basketball tourney or the possibility that next week, mayoral challenger Jesus Garcia will come close to beating up on Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Election Day.


I say possibility because we don’t know for sure at this time how Emanuel will do come April 7. Will his political operation turn so many people off to the concept of “Mayor Chuy” that they turn out to vote for Rahm?


OR CAN GARCIA pull off a political upset that would likely be a bigger story than when Harold Washington managed to win the mayoral elections back in 1983?

My gut feeling says it won’t happen, and we’re likely to get “Four more years!” of “Mayor Emanuel,” just like in the end it was totally predictable that Kentucky (the number 1-ranked school in the tourney) beat the Fighting Irish squad that some people want to believe had no business being on the court Saturday night against the Wildcats.

But if Notre Dame had managed to hold on to the lead they had in the second half, or for that matter had not managed to let Kentucky take the lead with just a few seconds left (it was 66-66) – you just know there are Fighting Irish sports fans who will dream forevermore about “What could have been” if Notre Dame had won, and advanced to the Final Four of the NCAA Division I tournament.

Somehow, I suspect that following next week’s Election Day, Garcia will slink back to his post on the Cook County Board (his current term runs through 2018) and only the hardest-core of political geeks will bother to remember his mayoral bid.

PART OF WHAT discourages me about the idea of a Garcia bid succeeding – even though I don’t doubt the sincerity of the segment of Chicago’s population that absolutely detests Emanuel – is the sight of 2^nd Ward Alderman Robert Fioretti feeling the need to endorse Hizzoner.

This comes following four years of Fioretti being the most outspoken critic of Emanuel on the City Council. This man spent the past four years finding just about every excuse he could think of to trash Emanuel’s professional reputation.

But the thought of Garcia as mayor supposedly is what it takes to make Fioretti think twice about Rahm and come to the conclusion that maybe he’s “ready and able to take on the tough financial challenges this city faces.”

It plays off the idea that, somehow, Garcia just isn’t capable of overseeing municipal government. Even though he is a former alderman (just like Fioretti) and, state senator, along with current county board member, none of those three decades of public service have taught him much of anything.

NOW I’M NOT going to come out and say this is some sort of ethnic hang-up; as though would-be voters simply think a “foreign” (born in Mexico, but lived the bulk of his life right here in Chicago) guy is naturally less qualified. But it does seem to be an element of the debate.

There is something about the tone of these claims that Chuy isn’t up to the task that seems reminiscent of the way certain people used to talk about why they didn’t like the idea of “Mayor Harold Washington” – but didn’t want it attributed to “racial” hang-ups.

He just didn’t have the kind of background they desired, even though Washington was just as much a part of the Chicago political organization as anybody else. Just as is Garcia!

Of course, there’s also the fact that the Democratic Party is (has been for a couple of decades, since the days of President Bill Clinton) in its own fight for its character. It’s the ‘60s activists grown older versus the activists grown up – as in having outgrown their cantankerous character and now expressing a desire to be the establishment.

THAT IS A good part of why the retirement in two years of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., will result in Number Two Democrat Richard Durbin, D-Ill., (he who bad-mouthed Walgreen’s) being passed over for the leadership post for Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. – who is perceived as being more sympathetic to “Wall Street” types.

Just as I’m sure those who say Garcia isn’t qualified to be mayor are really saying they define “qualifications” as being more like Emanuel. It is why it is likely that a Garcia near-victory next week will be written off as nothing more than a loss to soon be forgotten and the masses will go back to thinking that “Chewy” is a Star Wars character.

Unlike the Notre Dame near-victory that some people will never want to forget about. After all, just think of how crushed country singer Ashley Judd (a prominent Kentucky basketball fan) would have been if the Fighting Irish had actually won?

I can’t envision anyone (not even Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis, an outspoken Rahm-basher) getting that worked up if Emanuel wins.

  -30-

Rev. Barrow: the woman who propped up the image of Rev. Jesse Jackson

I’m almost hesitant to note the passing Thursday of the Rev. Willie T. Barrow – fearing anything I write will wind up being trite and unworthy of her significance to Chicago and to our society.

But her passing while being treated at Jackson Park Hospital for a blood clot near her lung is something that should be noted to people with an interest in the way Chicago has evolved.

SHE LIVED TO the age of 90 and engaged in many good works through the PUSH/Rainbow Coalition that have made our city a better place for us to live – even though I’m sure there are some cranks out there who are going to want to view her as part of the problem.

Personally, I dealt with Rev. Barrow off-and-on during the quarter-century that I have been a reporter-type person in the Chicago area. I’m not going to claim to be all-knowledgeable about her.

The impression I always gained was that she was the woman who kept the coalition operating while its late 1960s founder, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, was off galavanting around the world (he was in Morocco on Thursday, according to WTTW-TV), running for president and taking on crusade after crusade in which people’s rights were being stepped all over because of their skin complexion.

Jackson always gained his “credibility” from the Operation PUSH organization’s existence. It gave him that home base that allowed him to point to specific achievements back home.

BUT HIS REPEATED trips to far-off places to negotiate with hostile governments to get assorted hostages freed would not have been possible if someone hadn’t been running the shop back home.

Making sure that the daily routines and local business was being taken care of so that people back on the South Side neighborhoods were not being neglected.

That is the Rev. Barrow. We wouldn’t have a “Jesse Jackson,” senior or junior, of any public renown if she hadn’t been on the job.

Of course, it’s always possible that if we hadn’t had Rev. Jackson, Barrow herself would have become the predominant local civil rights leader.

AS CHICAGO TEACHERS Union President Karen Lewis said, “Rev. Barrow was a dynamo when it came to being a champion of justice for the citizens of Chicago, and for women and children in particular. Her stature (she was just under five feet tall) was small, but her spirit was gigantic, her energy boundless and her commitment unwavering.”

Chicago would be a lesser place had she never chosen to live and work here. Surely, her native Texas would be better off if it had made her feel more welcome as a child – she helped to lead a demonstration of rural black children who couldn’t get to school easily because the local school system in Burton viewed the expense of providing school buses to transport them as a waste of funds.

Their loss truly comes as Chicago’s gain, as she settled into our city after attending the Warner-Pacific Theological Seminary in Portland, Ore., then helping the Rev. Jackson and others to create the Operation Breadbasket organization that evolved into PUSH/Rainbow.

I realize that statements praising someone after their death are dime-a-dozen. They’re routine. They often resemble a race to see who can come up with the biggest platitudes the quickest.

ALTHOUGH THE PASSING of Barrow attracted attention from both President Barack Obama and his one-time chief of staff-turned-mayor Rahm Emanuel – the latter of whom issued the order that now has all flags at City Hall and other municipal buildings flying at half-staff in her honor.

But as Obama chose to phrase it, “We take comfort in the knowledge that our world is a far better place because she was a part of it.”

That just about says it all, even though I’m sure there are some Chicagoans who will foolishly believe that the recent passing of ballplayers like Ernie Banks or Minnie Miñoso – both of whom being the first black athletes to play for Chicago baseball clubs – were somehow more interesting.

  -30-

Lewis’ ‘scholarship’ talk the kind of feisty rhetoric mayoral campaign needs

When you come right down to it, this year’s electoral cycle for mayor has become deadly dull. There are people who get all worked up about wanting to depose Rahm Emanuel, but no one opponent seems capable of uniting those people into a viable opposition.

We’re likely to get Rahm II (along with III, IV, V and however many other terms Emanuel wants to seek) at the rate we’re going. There just isn’t any of the feistiness required to truly get the public all worked up enough to care about who wins on Election Day.

WHICH IS WHY I personally got my kick out of the statement issued by Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis. She, of course, is the woman who wanted an Emanuel opponent, but developed enough health concerns to prevent her from running a campaign.

Lewis didn’t issue any kind of Emanuel criticism on Wednesday. In fact, she didn’t even address the mayoral campaign.

Her issue of concern was the fact that Little League International said it was giving in to the concerns of those people who want to view as a fraud the Chicago-based Jackie Robinson West team that became U.S. champions in last year’s Little League World Series.

That team is no longer recognized as national champions. Instead, the record books that are supposed to preserve what really happened will say that a team from Las Vegas, Nev., was the best in the U.S.

A TEAM FROM West Dundee will now be recognized as the Illinois state champions, while a team from suburban Lansing will be recognized as a regional champ instead of the kids who represented the Roseland and Morgan Park neighborhoods – even though some of them openly admitted they were from suburban places such as South Holland, Dolton, Lansing and Lynwood.

If it comes across that I think this is a stupid action by Little League officials being done on behalf of sore losers who couldn’t beat the Jackie Robinson kids on the playing field, you’d be correct.

It also seems that Lewis has a similar sentiment. She said she “do(es) not respect” the decision, and she said she will continue to think of the Chicago-area kids as the real champions of 2014.

She went so far as to say she thinks the team ought to retain its championship, ber issued an apology and that the dozen kids who played baseball and captured the hearts and minds of some of our society (perhaps others couldn’t get past the notion of an all-black team being the best) ought to be compensated with college scholarships.

“EVERY PLAYER SHOULD receive full-ride scholarships for college sponsored by the people who have humiliated these boys, their families and their community,” Lewis wrote.

Which is a concept that I’m sure would infuriate those people who brought about the investigation, even though Little League International officials initially said they did not have concerns about the residency requirements for the Jackie Robinson West kids.

Yet I can’t help but think that’s exactly the kind of in-your-face rhetoric the Chicago mayoral campaign needs in order to give a jolt of excitement, some interest so to speak, into this election cycle. Maybe require Emanuel to build new schools to replace the 50 facilities that were closed in primarily black neighborhoods?

Something that would make people care enough to want to vote and feel like there is a legitimate reason to care about who has the leadership of our municipal government.

IF KAREN LEWIS could get so worked up over the Jackie Robinson West kids, just think how hard she’d be hammering away at Emanuel. Certainly more than Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, the politico who has Lewis’ endorsement and is trying to fill the organized labor niche in this election cycle.

Certainly enough to help us avoid the possibility of so many Emanuel sequels!

Just a pair of thoughts to trigger your minds for the day – would Rahm IV and V be as incredibly bloated, pompous and vapid as Rocky IV and V?

And who is the political opponent of actor Carl Wethers' Apollo Creed character in the Rahm series of stories?

  -30-

An election cycle fades into history, while another already takes its place

What do we get now that we have cast our votes (or expressed our apathy by not voting) for governor, senator and all the other political posts that were up for grabs on Tuesday?

Nothing more than the coming of a new election cycle – one that already has started, will pick up in coming weeks and will reach its peak come Feb. 24.

IT ALMOST FEELS like our home just got hit by a tornado, and as we’re picking our way through the rubble there goes the emergency siren – because another funnel cloud has been spotted.

Does this mean our garage is about to be taken out too?!?

What I’m referring to is the fact that the municipal government elections – including the ones for mayor, treasurer, clerk and 50 aldermen – will be upon us in less than four months.

With a runoff in early April if necessary.

WE CAN’T CATCH our breath now that it is Wednesday and Election Day 2014 is past us – unless one of the candidates decides to become a sore loser and try to get the courts to rule that “the people” were too stupid to know what they were doing when they cast their ballots.

We’re in a mode of perpetual election cycles, it seems at times. When one considers the overly parochial mentality of the average Chicagoan, we know that there are those who think Quinn/Rauner was just a rehearsal for the mayoral election.

Now that Bruce Rauner no longer needs to keep pumping millions of dollars into his campaign fund to enable him to try to bury Gov. Pat Quinn, the tale is going to become how Rauner’s friend, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, will use the millions he already has raised (my understanding is that it is just under $10 million) to bury any of the political dreamers impudent enough to try to challenge him come February.

There may be a strong sentiment amongst people who feel betrayed by Emanuel (or who never wanted him to begin with). But he’s going to be able to begin hitting hard as early as he wants to in an effort to portray the people wishing to run against him as the biggest batch of incompetents and rubes ever assembled on a political stage.

WE MAY WELL get four more years of “Mayor Rahm Emanuel,” although a part of me wonders at times if Emanuel is nothing more than Michael Bilandic, Jane Byrne, Harold Washington or Eugene Sawyer – as in someone who kept the mayor’s chair warm until the next generation of Daleys are ready to run for the office (this time around, grandson/nephew Patrick D. Thompson is merely running for alderman).

The aspect that has me wondering about the February (and April) elections is whether the discontent with Emanuel will translate into aldermen getting dumped from office.

Back when Karen Lewis was considered a possibility to run for mayor, the Chicago Teachers Union’s political people were trying to put together an unofficial slate of candidates who would run for alderman to be paired up with the teachers union's president.

As it is, there are about a dozen of those people currently circulating nominating petitions in wards across the city to get themselves ballot spots for alderman.

WILL THERE BE more aldermanic opposition to Emanuel from the City Council?

Or will the mayor wind up using much of his campaign cash to prop up aldermanic campaigns to ensure that the council “minds its manners,” so to speak?

There’s also the issue of whether Quinn has snubbed Emanuel – who last week made a public statement that can be construed as an endorsement of the governor in Tuesday’s election.

Quinn didn’t return the favor, saying he was focusing his attention on his own re-election. Which sort of makes sense.

BUT DOES THIS mean that come late January, we’re going to get the sight of Quinn swallowing his pride (and all the memories of the times that he and Emanuel have clashed) and telling us to vote for Rahm?

Those of us old enough to remember the days of Pat Quinn Sunday press conferences to tout whatever “cause” he was promoting that week would consider that the ultimate evidence of how much things change with time.

  -30-

Will Chuy be the new Karen Lewis?

It will be interesting to see if Cook County Commissioner Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, D-Chicago, can capture the imagination of the electorate – or at least those people who are determined to show up at the polling places come February to vote for Anybody But Rahm.

Garcia is the long-time politico at the city, state and county levels who now wants to try to become mayor come the 2015 municipal elections.

THAT WAS THE campaign that many had hoped would be between Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis – who has made her own detestation for Hizzoner publicly known on many an occasion.

But Lewis was hospitalized earlier this month, and it turns out had to undergo serious surgery. She has health issues that make the idea of running a political campaign incredibly unrealistic.

So that leaves the Emanuel detesters in desperate need of somebody, anybody, else they can vote for on Feb. 24 – and again on April 7 if a run-off in the nonpartisan election becomes a necessity.

That is where Garcia – a long-time critic of the Chicago political establishment – comes in. If the Mexican-born politico can rise above the image of being somebody that people from the Little Village and Pilsen neighborhoods vote for, he could be a credible opponent.

WHICH IS WHY I find it interesting to see where Garcia plans to be on Friday – he will be the keynote speaker for the Chicago Teachers Union legislators and educators appreciation dinner to be held at Plummer’s Hall; a particularly popular Near West Side location for just about any kind of organized labor gathering.

Gov. Pat Quinn also is to be there, along with Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill. – both of whom have their own election desires up for grabs come Tuesday.

Yet I’d bet that politically-minded people will be paying more attention to Chuy (for those who are clueless, it’s a common Spanish nickname for people who were named after the Son of God) and anything he says more than anything that comes from the mouth of the “Mighty” Quinn.

For Lewis was planning to use her organization with the teachers union as the base of any campaign she could have run against Emanuel. There also are several other people in the union who are planning to run for aldermanic seats.

IT COULD HAVE become sort of like a political slate that could have created a “Mayor Lewis” some allies in the City Council.

Is Garcia capable of stepping into the vacuum created by Lewis’ departure from the upcoming election cycle to create a campaign momentum for himself? We could get our first clues Friday night!

Now whether it will happen is something we’ll have to see.

I noticed the Capitol Fax newsletter out of Springfield pointed out that Garcia isn’t exactly the most stellar of fundraisers for his political efforts. Lewis herself likely would have been vastly outspent by any Emanuel campaign.

THE SAME IS definitely bound to happen for any political bid that Garcia puts up. He won’t have enough money to be competitive, and could easily get defined by Emanuel as someone not up to the job. Because there are those who will want to believe that no Latino politico truly has the kind of experience to challenge for leadership of the city of Chicago.

I noticed that the Chicago Tribune, in reporting earlier this week on Garcia’s entry into the mayoral campaign, made a point of referring to him in the lede of their story as a “little known” politician.

Despite his political experience dating back to the days of Harold Washington as mayor and his experience in being dumped from the Illinois Senate because then-Mayor Richard M. Daley preferred the idea of a more subservient Latino in a Chicago-based legislative seat.

In the county board, he has been a constant supporter of board President Toni Preckwinkle – who is the person that some people would like to see replace Lewis as a mayoral challenger.

WHAT IF PRECKWINKLE were to wind up giving her backing (even in some discrete form, such as refusing to do anything positive for Emanuel) to a Garcia bid.

Between that and the teachers union backing, it could turn him into a credible challenger. Without it, he could be the guy who gets his butt whomped by 2^nd Ward Alderman Robert Fioretti!

We’ll see soon enough which scenario is more likely to happen.


  -30-


EDITOR'S NOTE: I couldn't help but add the notice issued by the teachers union Friday afternoon that Karen Lewis herself will be present at the event. How nice for Garcia if he can get a campaign photograph of himself arm-in-arm with Lewis. It would be worth more than any financial contribution.

Remembering what never was

Consider this commentary a moment of silence for the most memorable political campaign that never will be – the challenge of Chicago Teachers Union head Karen Lewis against Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

On account of her illness (a Chicago Sun-Times “Sneedscoop” tells us it’s a brain tumor), it seems Emanuel will get a batch of lukewarm to nothing challengers, and we will get the reign of Rahm II. For all those who were viewing the gubernatorial election as a prelude to next year’s mayoral brawl, this will be the biggest letdown!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And as for Lewis, here’s hoping she recovers in full from the “Brain Tumor Battle” that the Sun-Times splashed all over Tuesday’s front page.

  -30-

Will anyone challenge Emanuel?

We know that Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis “is recovering well” following surgery Wednesday at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. But common sense would indicate that her “serious illness” puts a serious crimp in the thoughts of those people who want her to challenge Rahm Emanuel for mayor.

So is 2^nd Ward Alderman Robert Fioretti the ultimate winner of the past week’s activities? Or is he too ineffectual to benefit; making Mayor Emanuel the top dog – on account that a potentially strong challenger is down for the count, and it’s getting close to “10.”

NOW I’M NOT about to engage in another diatribe about Lewis being overly secretive about her health.

In fact, I suspect that union Vice President Jesse Sharkey was correct earlier this week when he told reporter-types he suspected that most of the questions about Lewis’ health were really attempts to figure out what would happen in the Feb. 24 municipal elections.

Which, to be honest, is the matter that impacts the bulk of us who will be put in a position in that election, and a possible April run-off, to decide who the mayor of Chicago ought to be for the next four years.

I’ll be the first to admit that there is a sizable number of Chicagoans who want to Dump Emanuel. I don’t think they really care who winds up in office, except they just don’t want Rahm.

ALTHOUGH IF WE’RE to be completely honest, nothing that Emanuel has done since becoming mayor in 2011 ought to be regarded as a surprise. We basically got what the majority of us voted for the last municipal election.

I’m also sure there are those people who are satisfied that Emanuel has maintained a status-quo, of sorts, in the way city government operates. So I’m sure some people will turn out to vote for him, regardless of who has the nerve to challenge him.

That issue involving the closing of several facilities in the Chicago Public Schools is a harsh one because of the way it seemed to focus on neighborhoods of African-American residents.

Even though it should be said many of the schools that got shuttered were struggling facilities that really didn’t have much to offer and that we probably are better off without. But rather than fix those facilities to make them useful, the city chose to sweep the problem under the carpet.

THAT’S WHY EMANUEL blew any goodwill he had amongst black voters as Barack Obama’s one-time chief of staff. But the reality is becoming that there simply isn’t anyone credible for those discontented voters to vote for.

There will be other names on the ballot, but they will be candidates with their own baggage or lacking in the resources to get themselves known to the masses so they could get enough votes to actually win an election.

It will be interesting to see one-time Alderman and county official Robert Shaw try once again to be on the campaign trail. Although to be honest, since the death of his twin brother Bill (himself a state senator and suburban Dolton mayor), the Shaw brothers seem like a relic of the past.

As for Fioretti, I was amused to see some campaign signs erected in the Pullman neighborhood touting his mayoral desires. Then again, he grew up there. Could Fioretti be the guy who will get the votes of a few cousins, and nobody else?

OR IS HE the one positioned to be able to become the new ‘flavor of the month’ for those people who want Anybody But Rahm on the fifth floor come May?

I’ll be honest. I’d like to see a competitive mayoral campaign (just as I’m hoping that Lewis herself fully recovers and is able to resume her duties with the teachers’ union).

Seeing Rahm rise to re-election with ease and becoming more entrenched (Emperor Emanuel?!?) in his political post is something that benefits none of us.

  -30-

Lewis’ secrecy over hospitalization not a good character trait for public official

It’s always intriguing whenever a public official winds up becoming ill and needing the services of a hospital.

Not only does it show us how vulnerable they are, it also puts them into positions where they have to take orders – rather than bark them out to their minions.

SO WHAT SHOULD we think of the fact that Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis (also the hopeful mayoral candidate for many who despise the thought of “four more years” of Rahm Emanuel) is at an undisclosed hospital somewhere in Chicago.

Or, for all we know, it could be out in the suburbs somewhere. Maybe she thought she could do a hospital stay somewhere isolated and no one would ever know?

Now before anyone gets all worked up, I must disclose that I don’t know where she is, or what exactly she is being treated for. Which, if you’re relying on the various news media accounts that began popping up on the Internet Monday night and updated in the Tuesday newspapers, is the same level of knowledge you don’t have.

The teachers union initially tried saying nothing, even though the rumor mill out there was saying that Lewis, who is 61, suffered a stroke. That tidbit got reported in several places.

ALTHOUGH A STATEMENT by union officials that reads like it was coerced flatly denied that she suffered a stroke.

“Karen is being evaluated in a local hospital after experiencing discomfort Sunday evening,” the union said, while going on to cite her “privacy” as a reason for offering up so little detail.

The only problem with that line of logic is that one gives up a certain amount of privacy when they throw themselves into the public policy eye – or even contemplate doing so.

Perhaps this is a reason why those people who want to replace Rahm so badly (we hate Emanuel more than we despise Eisenhower Expressway morning rush hour traffic, according to a poll by yet another mayoral challenger, Robert Fioretti) that they’re practically begging Lewis to run for mayor ought to get a grip and focus their attention elsewhere.

BECAUSE IF SHE were mayor, there’d be no way she’d be able to get away with this kind of non-talk. We literally would have reporter-types staking out every single hospital in Chicago and nearby suburbs in hopes of trying to catch a glimpse of her (we literally didn’t know where she was, so we’d have to hit them all).

Watching this play out brings back memories from just over two decades ago when then-Gov. Jim Edgar wound up requiring quadruple bypass surgery to remove a blockage that was preventing sufficient blood from getting to his heart.

I remember the level of briefings being so detailed to the point where one of my editors commented that my stories were rather graphic about referring to the condition of the governor’s groin – something he claimed to have never read before.

While Lewis is giving us something we have all read way too often – absolutely nothing. Unless you want to read the platitudes about how Lewis is a “freedom fighter” who will be “back on her feet in no time.”

I’LL GIVE THE union the benefit of the doubt that the little bits of information they have provided about their boss is all truthful. For all I know, she may well be out of the hospital by the time you get about to reading this commentary.

There are those of us who will go on about concocting tacky jokes about how it probably was Rahm himself who plotted out a scheme to make Lewis ill so as to knock her out of the election cycle before she could get in.

But what I do know for sure is that Lewis is showing us she has at least one characteristic of a political person – a sense of secrecy. Unfortunately, that’s not one of the reasons some people are wishing, praying, hoping for a “Mayor Lewis” come next May.

  -30-