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| GARCIA: Cook County grudges come to life |
For
Garcia, formerly a member of the Cook County Board before being elected to
Congress, has come out publicly in favor of the mayoral campaign of Lori
Lightfoot.
OR
ACTUALLY, IT’S more like he’s come out as being opposed to the mayoral
aspirations of Toni Preckwinkle – who was his county board colleague as county
board president.
Meaning
this is about political payback. He doesn’t want Preckwinkle to prevail. He’d
like for her to go down to a shameful defeat come April 2.
Part
of it is because back in 2015 when Garcia wound up running against Rahm Emanuel
for mayor, Preckwinkle managed to fail to support Chuy’s mayoral aspirations
back then. So he doesn’t feel compelled to offer her any support.
There’s
also the fact that when the county assessor’s post was most recently open in
the 2018 election cycle, the two were split – with Preckwinkle backing Joe
Berrios’ bid for re-election while Garcia came out in favor of Fritz Kaegi.
ALSO
PLAYING INTO this is the fact that when Garcia gave up his county board post to
run for the seat in Congress, he wanted to hand-pick his replacement – Alma Anaya.
But Preckwinkle offered only the most tepid of support for her.
All
in all, it means Garcia has his reasons to not be inclined to want to see
Preckwinkle succeed. And if, by chance, there turns out to be evidence that the
Latino vote in Chicago this coming election swings heavily in favor of
Lightfoot for mayor, I have no doubt that Garcia will be more than eager to
take credit for it.
He’ll
gladly take it as a feather in his cap that he personally deprived Preckwinkle
of a significant (and growing) share of the electorate, and it will further
bolster his desire to see himself as Chicago’s most politically powerful
elected official of Latino ethnic origins.
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| Will Toni defeat redeem for Garcia … |
Similar
to how in last year’s elections, he was more than eager to take credit for the
fact that Dan Burke lost his seat in the Illinois House of Representatives –
saying he turned out the significant Latino vote in that Southwest Side legislative
district in order to bolster the Latino caucus within the General Assembly.
BUT
FOR ALL that accomplishment might mean, there’s also evidence that there are
limits to Garcia’s political influence. Such as the Feb. 26 election when
Garcia made it known he was targeting the aldermanic re-election bid of Burke’s
brother, Ed – as in the long-time Finance chairman who liked to think he was
the almighty powerbroker of City Hall.
Despite
the growing Latino population of that ward (about 80 percent), Burke solidly
won re-election. He got the remaining white voters to turn out in force to
generate some 53 percent of the vote – meaning he didn’t even have to endure a
run-off election.
And
he overcame all the hostile rhetoric that has been spewed about Burke on
account of the fact that federal prosecutors were slinging toward Ed. As in if
there ever was a time when Ed Burke should have been politically vulnerable,
this was it.
If
anything, Ed Burke’s victory showed the limits of Garcia’s influence over
Latino Chicago. It puts thoughts into peoples’ minds that maybe Chuy isn’t as
almighty as he’d like us to think he is.
BY
THAT STANDARD, being able to claim he “took down” Preckwinkle’s mayoral
aspirations would be face-saving, to a degree.
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| … his failure to beat Burke? |
Of
course, there was the fact that in the Feb. 26 election, the Latino segments of
Chicago were the ones where the mayoral race was seen as a political battle
between Susana Mendoza and William Daley, with some extra votes for Gery Chico.
Preckwinkle
and Lightfoot really didn’t factor into the equation. Making some wonder if
come the run-off, the Latino voter turnout will be tepid, at best. Will Garcia
be able to get the Spanish-speaking enclaves of Chicago to care at all about
who the next mayor will be?
That will be the real test – as we will
learn whether anybody ought to be paying any significant attention to Garcia and
his thoughts in future elections.
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