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| PRECKWINKLE: Got two endorsements |
Take
the mayoral campaign of Toni Preckwinkle – whom some are determined to believe
is desperately clinging to life and is on the verge of political oblivion.
YET
EVEN PRECKWINKLE is still capable of finding people willing to say they support
her political aspirations. And not just the labor unions whom Toni had been
hoping all along would be the life’s blood of her campaign for the right to
work on the City Hall side of the municipal building, rather than the County
Board side.
Preckwinkle
picked up a pair of people who, at one time, might have been a major political
coup. But now?
We’re
talking about the endorsements she got from one-time state legislator and
county board President Todd Stroger and from the rap music star Chance.
As
in the guy who was the pulse that was the only reason anybody took seriously
the mayoral aspirations of Amara Enyia. The one who kicked in the campaign cash
that enabled her to actually have a campaign.
THE
GUY WHOM some thought might inspire young black Chicagoans to care about this
election cycle enough that perhaps Amara could have a chance of winning
something.
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| STROGER: Sympathizing w/ Toni? Nah! |
But
as it turned out, Chance’s support was only good enough to get Enyia a 7
percent share of the vote in the Feb. 26 election – not even close to qualifying
for one of the spots in the current run-off election.
So
now, Chance has become a part of the Preckwinkle bandwagon. Which doesn’t
surprise many political observers. It was always noted that one of the chairmen
of the Preckwinkle campaign is Ken Bennett – a.k.a., Chance’s father.
All
it means is that Chance’s mayoral preference went down the tubes, and his
father convinced him to remain involved ever-so-slightly. But not as much as he
was for Enyia.
BECAUSE
IT SHOULD be noted that Chance’s endorsement does not come along with any campaign
cash. He’s not giving Toni any money to get through the remaining days of this
election cycle.
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| CHANCE: Won't open his wallet |
I
don’t know if it’s true, but there were always those predicting that Chance
would wind up being swayed over to Camp Preckwinkle. Although those pundits
were usually speculating a scenario in which this would unify African-American
voter support for Toni against someone like William Daley.
Nobody figured this would be a
Lightfoot/Preckwinkle brawl!
But this move strikes many as being more
predictable than the one in which Stroger put aside his own animosities toward
Preckwinkle to say he supports her. Because there are those of us who remember
the 2010 election cycle in which Toni turned Todd into the ultimate example of
a political hack who was unfit for office when she beat him for the county
board president post he inherited when his father, John, had to step down.
COULD IT BE that Todd Stroger somehow
sympathizes with the way Toni Preckwinkle’s reputation is being so thoroughly
trashed by those Lightfoot backers eager to engage in demonization? Not likely.
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| LIGHTFOOT: Not likely losing sleep |
It’s more likely that Stroger is being
truthful when he says he hopes that a “Mayor Preckwinkle” will give him the
time of day and be willing to listen to his concerns for things he’d like to
see achieved across the city’s South Side. While a “Mayor Lightfoot,” he
suspects, would be likely to turn her old federal prosecutorial instincts on
him to try to find a way to get him indicted for something.
I’m not saying for sure that will happen.
A part of me doesn’t think Stroger was ever ambitious enough to do something
corrupt.
But it would be intriguing to see if
current circumstances are such that Toni and “the Toddler” are now political
allies – or will be for as long as the two see some mutual benefit to tolerating
each other’s existence.
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