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| Will people believe Wilson really a Republican? |
So
perhaps it only makes sense that Green is bitter about the person who is
supporting work to get him kicked off the ballot – which would be mayoral hopeful
Willie Wilson.
KEEP
IN MIND that Wilson himself did not file challenges to anybody. In fact, Wilson
is good about spewing rhetoric saying he does not believe in the concept of
ballot challenges – he thinks everybody should be permitted a ballot slot, if
they’re interested in running for office.
Which
is why it was Rickey Hendon, a one-time alderman and state senator who now
regards himself as a political operative who supports Wilson’s mayoral dreams,
who actually filed the challenges on Wilson’s behalf.
It
allows Wilson to claim some high-minded principle, while also having political
dirty work done on his behalf.
Of
course, this is the way all political challenges are done – the candidates are
allowed to remain above the fray of such nasty business, while still
benefitting from it.
THE
POINT OF all this is that Green is now in a process where he has to be prepared
to fight for his political existence – and he may not be capable of surviving
the process.
He
definitely isn’t going to be capable of campaigning seriously for office. All
of his time and money will be spent on fighting the process by which electoral
officials will kick him off the ballot.
 |
| Green fighting back against challenge ... |
Even
if he somehow survives the ballot challenge process, he isn’t going to have a
lot of time or campaign funds left to campaign. Attorneys fighting on his
behalf will manage to eat up any campaign money he ever had.
Which
is also the strategy being employed against Susana Mendoza’s mayoral campaign.
She’d be capable of running a serious campaign, except she’s going to have to
fight just to stay on the ballot.
BUT
BACK TO Green, who seems to have engaged in his own unique tactic for fighting
back against Wilson – a campaign ad trashing Wilson. Since Green doesn’t have a
lot of campaign cash, he’s putting the spot on YouTube and other sites on the Internet.
 |
| … by Hendon on Wilson's behalf |
Hoping
that people interested in casting ballots for the mayoral race manage to
stumble across it while searching the Internet for whatever sports scores, cutesy
video snippets of puppy dogs and (when they think nobody’s paying attention)
pornography they are interested in viewing.
Green
seems determined to take down Wilson’s reputation by reminding us that he
viewed soon-to-be-former Gov. Bruce Rauner as a political friend – even though
Rauner is a Republican.
It
goes so far as to imply that Wilson is a closet Republican – which may as well
be the kiss of death for a Chicago municipal election. Seeing we haven’t had a
Republican as mayor since the late 1920s days of William Hale Thompson, and
even Bernard Epton’s political ties were too much for him to overcome in that
1983 race he ran against Harold Washington.
 |
| MENDOZA: Also fighting for political life |
IT
MAY NOT help Green fight off the ballot challenge he faces. But it may well
stir up enough hostility to Wilson that Willie will have next to no chance of
being eligible to appear in a run-off election come April 2.
Which
would be the real goal – political payback for not putting a leash on Wilson’s operatives
to keep them from playing hardball politics.
This
may actually be typical of this electoral cycle – with no incumbent and so many
dreamers, nobody is going to get a large share of the Feb. 26 vote. It also may
turn out that the two run-off qualifiers will have built up so many enemies
amongst the people who get kicked off that the idea of unifying behind anybody
will be hard to achieve.
 |
| Will Daley prevail by default? |
It’s
why I wonder if we’re destined to get another “Mayor Daley” (as in William) because the vast majority of voters who would be appalled by such an idea won’t be able to get behind any other
candidate in large-enough numbers to top the kind of people who'd be totally pleased by the idea of "Daley III."
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