Is Kennedy for governor campaign trying to follow family history?

One of the big disappointments of the upcoming election cycle – at least as far as some political observers are concerned – is just how weak and pathetic has been the campaign of Chris Kennedy for Illinois governor.

Jesus Garcia offers his support to Chris Kennedy's gubernatorial dreams. Will that make a difference?

There were those people who went into this campaigning thinking that Election ’18 would be a brawl between the big family money of J.B. Pritzker, versus the Kennedy family legacy backing Chris – who is the Chicago-area’s Kennedy connection (for years, he ran the family-owned Merchandise Mart).

BUT KENNEDY’S CAMPAIGNING has been weak, particularly in the area of raising finances. Kennedy has name recognition (sort of), but it would seem that unless Chris can get a jolt in coming weeks, it will be the other fringe political challengers who will offer the Pritzker people their political fight.

Just where that jolt could come from got political people to speculating that it could be the growing Latino population (29.7 percent of Chicago’s populace, and now larger than the city’s African-American population) that could be what revives the chances of Chris Kennedy becoming the first Kennedy to get elected in Illinois (his cousins have been elected to office in various other states).

Could the Latino people of Illinois seriously wind up banding together to give Chris Kennedy enough political support to win the Democratic primary to be held March 20?

Bobby Kennedy and Cesar Chavez, back in the day

Such talk got goosed up last week when Jesus Garcia, the one-time alderman and state senator who now serves on the Cook County Board and who unsuccessfully challenged Rahm Emanuel for mayor two years ago, endorsed Chris Kennedy for governor.

SPECULATION AMONGST SOME is that Garcia has enough influence amongst the Mexican-American community in Chicago, along with other Latino ethnicities, that they will turn out for Kennedy.

Which would give the Kennedy campaign at least one group willing to publicly support him. When one considers the half-dozen or so Democratic gubernatorial dreamers, it is likely the primary winner will NOT top 50 percent. It won’t be a majority, but last year’s political victory by Donald J. Trump showed us a majority isn’t required to win.

JFK seeks Mexican-American votes back in '60 bid

Could Latino backing be enough to win a primary?

Could it cause the Latino public officials (including Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza) who have already come out in favor of J.B. Pritzker to think they have to figure out a way to change sides, or else wind up looking like a vendido – selling out the interests of their community?

WHAT IS INTRIGUING is that if such a strategy works, it would merely mean that Kennedy followed in the family tradition. Chris is the son of one-time Attorney General, senator and presidential dreamer Bobby Kennedy, and the nephew of former President John F. Kennedy AND former Sen. Ted Kennedy – the long-time senator from Massachusetts.

All of whom had their own sense of Latino ties to bolster their chances of winning, with some using the label of “first Latino senator” to describe his Uncle Teddy.

A younger Jesus Garcia supportive of Harold Washington and Teddy Kennedy

Chris Kennedy himself, in announcing the Garcia endorsement, made a point of reminding people of his father’s ties to United Farm Workers founder Cesar Chavez. Bobby Kennedy included in his own presidential campaigning appearances with Chavez. Chris himself once joined with Chavez back in 1988 and fasted with him for three days when Cesar did a 36-day fast to highlight the impact of pesticides on the farm hands working the fields.

Could Chris Kennedy have 21st Century take on Viva ?

But if you go back to 1960 presidential campaign, the one that Mayor Richard J. Daley allegedly stole for JFK right here in Chicago, one could also make an argument that it was victories in California and Texas that put Kennedy in the White House.

MUCH OF THOSE state victories were due to the “Viva Kennedy” Club efforts – by which Mexican-American people were a focus on the Kennedy campaign, and their 10-1 voter support for JFK over Richard Nixon were considered significant elements of those victories.

Those “Viva Kennedy” club efforts were one of the first ever by a national political campaign to reach out to Latino voters – previously, such voters were ignored.

In Illinois, Chris Kennedy has developed a reputation as a guy who likes to talk about running for office, but doesn’t have the political will to follow through a campaign to its finish. Some political observers are convinced that Chris still doesn’t have what it takes, and will drop out before the primary.

Could it be that the lesson for Kennedy to figure how to get through an entire political campaign is to follow the examples of “Dad” and “Uncle Jack” and reach out to the group in Chicago that actually is on the rise? Although I doubt anybody will someday do songs in tribute to Chris the way Chicano activist/singer Lalo Guerrero did for his dad, Bobby.

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¿Did Donald do himself in politically with his habla on Mexicaños?

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has been one of hitting hard and often several groups of people he figures were never going to support him anyway; but it was notable that his political trash talk began with Mexicans.
 

Will Latinos turn Trump into electoral piñata?

You remember? His spiel that Mexicans were rapists and drug dealers, and that erecting that barricade along the U.S./Mexico border would be a significant boost to the national security?

TRUMP AND HIS operatives always figured it couldn’t hurt them to talk like that because there just wouldn’t be enough Mexican-Americans to cast ballots. And such talk likely would inspire the nativist element of society that Trump is counting on to prevent him from electoral embarrassment come Tuesday night.

Now I don’t doubt that the xenophobes amongst us will be motivated to turn out and vote. Heck, I don’t doubt that in the isolated parts of the country, they will be dominant and will create political maps with large swaths of red.

Tainted, in the ideologues’ minds, by those pimples of blue that represent the urban areas where people (including voters) actually live.

But the complicating factor from the Trump perspective is the Latino vote – which has been on the rise but also shows signs of significant numbers of Latino voters can be apathetic.

WHICH IS WHAT makes the Miami-based Latino Decisions group intriguing. It shows an anticipated record-high Latino vote for the 2016 election cycle. As many as 14.7 million Latinos casting ballots in the Tuesday elections.

With some 79 percent of those anticipated to vote for Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid. Another 3 percent are expected to be amongst the contrarians voting for Libertarian or Green candidates.

Trump may well have motivated people with their ethnic origins in the rest of the Americas to think of Hillary as their friend. We laughed sarcastically when she tried comparing herself to a friendly abuelita, but we clearly see Trump as that Yankee imperialist whose view of Latinos is one of how he can exploit us by building his garish hotels in our neighborhoods, and get some of us to work for as close to minimum wage as he can get away with.

Kind of like the way our organized crime interests tried turning Havana into their hotel/casino paradise – which motivated certain people to give power to a tyrant like Fidel Castro.

IT DOES SEEM like Trump will have no one else to blame but himself if he does not prevail. If he had kept his mouth shut and been the least bit respectful, perhaps he wouldn’t have people already turning out at early voting centers to ensure they cast their ballots against him.

Then again, a Trump that is respectful would not really be Donald Trump. His brash bluster and arrogance is what makes him (and he alone) think he is fit to be president.

Of course, if a strong Latino vote really does turn out to block Trump’s presidential aspirations, THAT is what will be perceived by the ideologues as the “rigged” element of this year’s election cycle.

Because as they probably see it, only people like themselves ought to be allowed to vote – just like in the old days, which weren’t nearly as great as some would like to believe they were.

PERSONALLY, I’LL BE watching for all the bits of evidence that crop up to indicate just how strong a Latino vote will turn out to be – because it could be the evidence of the growing strength of the Latino electorate.

As in Trump may have opened up the can of worms, so to speak, that his ideologue-types would have preferred remained sealed shut.

Because as the Latino vote (which back in 1992 when Bill Clinton became president only accounted for some 4.3 million votes) continues to grow (a record-high 11.2 million in 2012 that will be shattered again this time around), it will only be more difficult for the xenophobes amongst us to prevail.

Which means that in the end, those of us with an interest in growing Latino political empowerment may wind up thanking Trump for being the guy who made the masses realize how stupid his attitudes truly are!

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EDITOR’S NOTE: A website for those who want to view pictures of people smashing piñatas in the image of Donald Trump. Or, you can just wait until Election Day and see how severely we vote against him.

Mexican independence parties city out

Residents of the South Chicago neighborhood down in one-time steel mill country have celebrated Mexico Independence Day with a parade for 69 years, including this celebration from 1957. Photograph provided by Southeast Chicago Historical Society.

It’s Independence Day in Mexico on Tuesday. Yet for those people in Chicago with an interest in celebrating the holiday, it is already over.

The official citywide celebration on Columbus Drive took place 10 days ago, while the Mexican-oriented neighborhoods of the city had local celebrations this past weekend. From Pilsen to Little Village to South Chicago, one could literally celebrate the holiday over and over and over.

SO WHAT IS the significance of the actual holiday, which is a factor for the roughly one in six Chicagoans who are of Mexican ethnic descent? It’s less about allegiance to a past homeland, and a celebration of cultural pride.

Which makes it about as significant as the St. Patrick’s Day parades or the New Year celebration conducted each year in Chinatown. One should read The South Chicagoan (http://southchicagoan.blogspot.com/) for more thoughts on this issue.

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Pilsen is anything but fashionable

My news chuckle for the day came from a New York Times account of the Pilsen neighborhood and Chicago’s other Hispanic influences. Specifically, I find humorous the reference in the story’s lede to Pilsen being the “fashionable Latino neighborhood.”

Trust me when I tell you that any person of Latin American ethnic background who chooses to live in a Spanish-oriented neighborhood (In reality, we are scattered across the Chicago area in all types of communities) is not the least bit concerned with being “fashionable.”

AS FOR THE artsy types who in recent years have moved there because of the perception of cheap rent (it’s nowhere near as cheap as it used to be a couple of decades ago), many of them probably view the Mexican orientation of Pilsen as a drawback overcome by its close proximity (about a 15-minute elevated train ride) to downtown Chicago.

Anyway, here’s the link (http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/travel/29next.html) to the story, which is an interesting account of a continuously evolving neighborhood continuing to evolve.

Seriously, Pilsen is a one-time Bohemian community (Did you think a bunch of crazy Mexicanos named their neighborhood for the one-time capital of West Bohemia?) that throughout the years has been home to just about every eastern European ethnicity when they were immigrants.

Now, it is a neighborhood oriented to newcomers from Mexico.

THE REAL QUESTION is to wonder if the neighborhood will retain a Spanish-speaking flavor, or will it continue to evolve with some new immigrant group? Or will those artists come in, price everything out of range of lower-income Latinos, and turn the neighborhood into an artsy community.

In short, will they turn it into something truly fashionable? And does that make “fashionable” synonymous with “dreadful?”

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