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| Would like to exchange county seal for city |
It’s
supposedly exposing Preckwinkle herself to be little better than the political
hacks she’d like us all to think she will challenge, should she manage to get herself
elected mayor in the upcoming Feb. 26 election (and likely April 2 run-off).
YET
I’VE SEEN enough partisan politicking throughout the years to realize there is
a strategy to a candidate challenging would-be opponents to try to get them
kicked off the ballot.
Yes,
it may seem that Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza and former federal prosecutor
Lori Lightfoot WILL be on the ballot for the Feb. 26 election. Voters will have
a legitimate option to pick either of them.
Those
two are not in the same league as someone like Ja’Mal Green, who did manage to
get booted from the ballot for inadequate signatures of support on his
nominating petitions.
They’re
certainly in a different league as people like Conrein Hykes Clark or Catherine
Brown D’Tycoon – whose challenges by the Preckwinkle people are still pending.
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| Lightfoot lives to fight another day, … |
The
fact is that I’m sure both would have preferred to have used the past few weeks
since filing their nominating petitions trying to gain public attention and build
support amongst would-be voters.
They
would have liked to have talked about themselves and tried to spread the
message about why people should seriously consider casting a ballot for their
candidacies.
Instead,
they have had to spend time in consultation with attorneys who guided them
through the legal morass that predominates the Chicago Board of Election
Commissioners. Election law can be an arcane process – one with a confusing
mess of law that really can be vague enough to allow for people to be kicked
off the ballot for whatever obscure excuse the political people concoct in their
minds.
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| … as does Mendoza |
IN
SOME CASES, the petition challenges are filed knowing they may not succeed. But
instead may cause enough chaos to knock a campaign from gaining any traction.
Meaning the person who might have had a serious shot at prevailing instead
flounders.
Which
is something that could happen to both Lightfoot and Mendoza – both of whom
have their supporters who seriously think the two would make fine public
servants.
But
that may not be enough, and it could be what causes them to fall behind in such
a crammed field of candidates to where they can’t even qualify for a run-off election.
For Feb. 26 will be a day in which finishing third won’t be any better than
coming in eighth or ninth or however far back amongst the candidate field one
can sink.
It’s
going to be Numbers One and Two who will make it to the head-to-head challenge
against each other – unless, by some political miracle, Number One manages to
gain so much support they can take an immediate majority and avoid the need for
a run-off.
AN
INSTANCE NOT likely to occur.
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| Who will be Chicago's next mayor? |
As
for Preckwinkle, I suppose there’s the chance that her challenging tactics will
offend so many people that when they cast their ballots for a run-off, they get
it in their heads that they’ll vote for Anybody But Toni!
But
I can also see how those people would be so un-unified that they won’t be able
to agree on anything. It may well be that the eventual winner of the Chicago mayoral
election of 2019 will be someone whom a majority of would-be voters right now
would feel complete apathy for.
Which
means we should start preparing now for the four years of contempt we’re going
to feel for our city government – being fueled in part by these endless rounds
of challenges to try to keep people from running for office to begin with!
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