EXTRA: A “first,” a last, and more of just the same – election day in Chicago

The vote tally is still taking place, and it’s not clear whether we’re going to have a chance at a third incarnation of a “Mayor Daley,” or if we’re going to get the city’s first black woman to hold the office of “Hizzoner.”

 

Daley III. Or not close enough?

Or “Heronner,” if we want to be strictly accurate about things.

TUESDAY WAS AN Election Day that threatened to have the lowest voter turnout ever for a mayoral election, and it was only because of a final surge at the end of the day at polling places that the turnout crept just above the 33 percent record that was set back in 2007.

That was the final re-election for Richard M. Daley, by which time many people were tired of the son of Richard J. So the trick was whether enough time had passed that another son of Richard J. might actually succeed.

After about two hours of ballot counting, William Daley’s mayoral campaign had 14.7 percent of the votes. Which in this election cycle with 14 candidates seeking the mayor’s office was good enough for third.

Or just close enough that he can’t qualify for an April 2 run-off election.

THE TOP TWO slots were being held by Toni Preckwinkle (16 percent of the vote) and Lori Lightfoot (at 17.4 percent). With votes in more than 200 precincts across the city still to be counted, it could still be possible for the one-time chief of staff to President Barack Obama could manage to creep into second place – and therefore be in the run-off for mayor.

Is Preckwinkle or Lightfoot (below) … 

But if things manage to stand as they already are, we’ll be facing a Preckwinkle/Lightfoot brawl.

Both of whom are black women, which would be a “first” for Chicago. Although I’m sure there are certain kinds of people who deliberately cast their ballots Tuesday in ways meant to prevent such a “first” from being achieved.

… more fitting of the character … 

It is kind of humorous the way this election cycle has shaped up. Preckwinkle was the one-time darling of those who considered themselves politically progressive, but now is regarded as just another political hack.

HOW ELSE TO describe a one-time alderman (albeit from the Hyde Park neighborhood) and county board president?

… of former Mayor Jane Byrne?

Whereas Lightfoot is a former federal prosecutor and head of the Chicago Police Board. Not usually credentials that would gain anybody political support from people of progressive leanings.

But in this election cycle, some people seem so eager to vote for anybody who’s never held elective office before. As though we’re eager to have a political amateur in place.

Consider that some 52 percent of people who cast ballots actually voted for someone other than the three people who are dominating the vote. This really is an election cycle in which we, the electorate, couldn’t reach a consensus.

Chance the Rapper not enough for Enyia win

SO WE’LL LIKELY find out in coming days whether we have a chance at another “Mayor Daley,” or someone to remind us of the days of Jane Byrne’s mayoral stint. About the only thing we can say is that the influence of Chance the Rapper (who financially backed candidate Amara Enyia’s campaign) was only good for about 8 percent of the vote.

Which was good enough to top the 5.5 percent that one-time Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas managed to get in his mayoral bid.

Burke held against everyone but himself

But before you start to think that we’re in for total change, keep in mind the aldermanic races – where Edward M. Burke’s legal problems and his ties to so many political people were being blamed for the failure of candidates to finish strong. Even Preckwinkle supposedly didn’t finish first because of such ties.

But as for Burke himself? It seems he got re-elected without having to do a run-off – he got some 55 percent of the vote – even though his ward has developed an overwhelmingly Latino population and some were counting on that factor as being enough to dump Burke. It seems that voters will hold Burke against other people, while not hesitating to vote for the man himself!

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Does anybody think a 14-candidate forum works – except to create chaos?

I’m usually of the sort when it comes to candidate forums and debates that it’s wrong to think in terms of fringe candidates and paring down the field to only certain political aspirants.

Can we 'decide' amongst mayoral candidates if we don't see them side by side? Or would such a forum be little more than political chaos?

If a candidate manages to get a spot on a ballot and will be an option come Election Day, I say its downright reckless to try to exclude them. People have a right to know exactly who the ding-dongs are whose names are before them when they make choices for political office.

BUT I HAVE to admit; that viewpoint of mine is being tested by the upcoming election cycle for Chicago municipal government – particularly for that of mayor.

I’m talking about the cycle that’s going to ask voters to pick from amongst 14 candidates who managed to make it past the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners’ process for putting together the Feb. 26 ballot.

WFLD-TV (as in Channel 32) is planning a pair of candidate forums they will televise, come Thursday and Friday.

The Thursday program will feature the campaigns of Toni Preckwinkle, Susana Mendoza, Gery Chico, Bill Daley and Willie Wilson. Friday’s forum will be for everybody else – as in the candidates who are not considered as having as strong of support as the Big Five.

OR, AS CANDIDATE Paul Vallas put it, “we get invited to the children’s table.”

It doesn’t surprise me that judgment calls are being made as to which of the 14 candidates ought to be taken seriously and are worthy of news coverage. It would be kind of ridiculous to equate former Alderman Robert Fioretti’s mayoral campaign with that of Preckwinkle.

But it also means feelings are being hurt by the candidates who are finding out they’re not going to be taken as seriously as the Big Five! Both Vallas and Amara Enyia both complained publicly about their exclusion, with Enyia taking the stance that this is the political establishment trying to pre-determine the Election Day outcome. She’d even be correct in saying that the polls showing the Big Five in the lead actually show no one has a ridiculously-large lead and the “children’s table” candidates aren’t that far behind the leaders.

It almost seems like everybody wants to work out of the Fifth Floor office at City Hall for the next four years

Of course, she’s also getting hammered these days by the Chicago Tribune for the moments of ineptitude she has had in her personal finances and in government posts she has held in the suburbs.

IF ANYTHING, IT would be interesting to have a candidate forum of sorts so that we could see Enyia side-by-side with the bigger names so we could see for ourselves just how much she is lacking by comparison. Although I expect the kind of people who back her because she has a rap music star on her side will not care much.

But I’m not optimistic that such a forum could occur.

Mostly because I don’t have a clue how you’d stage such an event. How could you have a credible debate program with 14 people each trying to respond to each other, and come up with smart-aleck retorts to each other’s insults?

Is this the inevitable outcome … 

When you consider that a debate is likely to be an hour-long event – at most – trying to include everybody would most likely result in everybody getting one question. There wouldn’t be enough time to ask anything more and expect everybody to answer.

AND BEFORE YOU say the forum could be lengthened, I’d retort that, “You’ve got to be kidding me!” Trying to stage several hours of political blather (which is what many political debates devolve into) would insure that nobody sits through and sees the whole thing.

… for an April 2 run-off election?

The tedium would cause so many channels to be changed in mid-debate.

It might well be that this freak-show of an election cycle with so many candidates is just the type of thing that makes for bad television. It certainly wouldn’t be possible to do much of a debate – no matter how much political people try to follow the usual conventions to do so.

Unless you’re really that eager to see and hear La Shawn Ford and Jeremiah Joyce exchange retorts, while Daley sighs at the sight of other people trying to seek the political post that certain types of Chicagoans may regard as his birthright.

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Down to 21; how few candidates will remain by the time it is all over

The “it” is the process by which we put together the ballot of candidates who we’ll get to choose from come Feb. 26 for who gets to succeed Rahm Emanuel as mayor of the city of Chicago.

Whose face will fill the blank come May inauguration?

Much attention was paid the past week to the candidates who actually came forth with nominating petitions seeking a spot on the mayoral ballot.

THERE ONCE WAS a time when some 40 or so people were talking about running for mayor. The Monday deadline for filing nominating petitions came and went with 21 people actually taking the step forward.

Yet in all honesty, I’ll be shocked if more than a half-dozen of them actually make it all the way to Election Day.

There are bound to be candidates who come to the realization before then that their mayoral aspirations are pure fantasy. Then there also will be those who will wind up feeling crushed – as though the “gods” of politics are conspiring against them to keep us from casting a vote for them.

I don’t doubt that every single one of the 21 who filed nominating petitions is convinced that they’re the only logical choice for mayor, and that everybody else would be doing themselves and the public at-large a whole lot of good if they’d only drop out.

MENDOZA: Could she fall short of backers?

THE PART OF the political process we’re now entering is the “challenges.” As in having their supporters file objections to their opponents – contending they didn’t meet the bare minimum requirement of 12,500 valid signatures of support for their candidacy from Chicago residents who happen to be registered to vote.

The fear of getting knocked off is what causes candidates to go overboard and come up with so many more signatures than necessary. Because invariably, somebody is going to get a signature from a suburban resident who just happened to be in the city at the time a campaign worker got their autograph.

Either that, or someone is going to think it incredibly funny to sign themselves as “Mickey Mouse” or “Donald Trump” or some other nonsense name. Which taints the nominating petition as a whole!

ENYIA: Kicked off ballot just for kicks?

Candidates now are looking for ways to kick their opponents off the ballot so as to boost their own chances of achieving political victory and being the one who takes the oath of office for mayor come May.

I WON’T BE surprised if candidate Amara Enyia winds up finding herself spending significant amounts of time fighting off a challenge. She’s the candidate who has gotten attention and money from rap music entertainers, and who claims she has more than 62,000 signatures of support.

Which actually is just more than the 60,000 or so that Toni Preckwinkle gathered for her mayoral bid.

I don’t doubt that the political geeks who specialize in this type of duty would love the chance to show that Enyia’s signatures are so tainted that she deserves to be booted from the ballot.

Even if she does remain through to Election Day, she could wind up spending her time with attorneys her campaign really can’t afford trying to justify her political existence. Which is actually a common tactic for dealing with fringe candidates who might have something serious to say. Neutralize them into oblivion!!!

I’M GOING TO be interesting in seeing how the candidacy of Susana Mendoza turns out. Because she started gathering mayoral petition signatures so late (she had to spend time getting re-elected as Illinois comptroller first), she only submitted some 25,000.

How many petitions do you figure he signed?

Could the same political geeks who pick apart Enyia wind up knocking off enough of Mendoza’s supporters to make her ineligible to run for mayor? Thereby reducing the number of legitimate mayoral candidates on the ballot.

Because the reality is the “law” with regards to ballot access is vague as to what exactly an invalid signature is. Basically, it is whatever the challenger says it is, and it becomes up to the would-be candidate to prove they didn’t do something wrong.

Definitely a process intended to weed out the no-names and bring us down to a manageable number of candidates from whom to vote – even if the end result is that we wind up with the same old names on the ballot every single election cycle.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: For now, the ballot (in alphabetical order) includes Catherine Brown D’Tycoon, Dorothy Brown, Gery Chico, William Daley, Amara Enyia, Bob Fioretti, LaShawn Ford, Ja’Mal Green, Conrien Hykes Clark, Jerry Joyce, John Kozlar, Lori Lightfoot, Sandra Mallory, Richard Mayers, Garry McCarthy, Susana Mendoza, Toni Preckwinkle, Neal Sales-Griffin, Paul Vallas, Roger Washington and Willie Wilson.

Mendoza picking the person she’d allow to replace her as comptroller

I happened to be watching the “Chicago Tonight” program (one of the few local news shows worth watching, by the way) this week, when Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza used political-speak to make it known she’d like to be Chicago mayor.

MENDOZA: Picking her post?

The one-time state representative, city clerk and state comptroller has been talked up as a mayoral candidate in the 2019 election cycle – even though she’s on the ballot for the Nov. 6 election for re-election to her state government post.

REPUBLICAN PARTISANS, LARGELY because they don’t have any legitimate objections to her, are trying to make an issue of her political future. They think Mendoza needs to state declaratively now and forever what her intentions are.

They’re trying to make people think it’s an outrage if Mendoza gets elected comptroller, then gives up the post in May IF she were to become elected mayor. Even though this kind of back-door dealing often occurs, and among candidates of both major political parties.

It is why I actually can accept Mendoza’s explanation every time she’s asked by someone who hopes to be the one who puts her “on the record” as to her political intentions.

Her answer usually is something along the lines of she’s focused on running for re-election, with her future to be decided some time in the future. It’s true enough, insofar as it goes.

Preckwinkle could fight with Mendoza … 

BUT THIS WEEK in speaking with the PBS affiliate, Mendoza said she’d be Illinois comptroller so long as Bruce Rauner is governor. Because she sees her filling of that political spot as a watchdog to the governor’s ideological desires.

With her as comptroller, she can impose a check – of sorts – on Rauner and all of his anti-organized labor desires.

Should Rauner manage to be dumped from office in the Nov. 6 elections and leave the governor’s mansion come January, she’d then feel free to contemplate leaving the post that she has held for just over two years to consider running for another office.

… for mayoral votes, as could Chico

Such as mayor, where she’d have some serious competition but also the support of activist types who’d love to see a Latina on the ballot or a younger woman – if noth both.

FOR IT IS those activist-types who are circulating the nominating petitions meant to show support for a Mendoza candidacy. Thereby allowing Mendoza to accurately say she’s not pushing herself for the mayoral post.

Of course, if she truly were opposed to having people talk her up as mayor, she’d have done something along the lines of Jesus Garcia, the Cook County Board member likely to win a seat in Congress next month. When those same activists tried circulating “Chuy for alcalde” petitions, Garcia made it clear he doesn’t want to run for mayor.

They then took up the cause of a Mendoza mayoral bid, and it seems the notion of returning to City Hall appeals to her ego. She could very well start actively campaigning for mayor the moment next month’s Election Day is over.

Admittedly, she’d have some heavy hitters to run against, such as William Daley, Toni Preckwinkle and Gery Chico (the latter of whom would likely be challenging her for the Latino segment of the Chicago electorate).

BUT IN THE same way that the mayoral dreams of Amara Enyia are being backed by people interested in a black woman, but who think Preckwinkle (at 71) is an old lady, there also likely are those who think Chico (at 62) ought to think of retiring and leave the job to the 46-year-old Mendoza.

Could they all clear the way for Daley

Of course, all this kind of political “logic” could be what causes the candidates to knock each other out and clear the path for a “Daley III” mayoral  term for William.

But with the Rauner campaign appearing to run these days on desperation and fantasy, perhaps Mendoza thinks it’s getting safe to hint she’d like to be mayor. If J.B. Pritzker could be the one who replaces her as state comptroller until a special election could be held in 2020, she wouldn’t be abandoning her post.

Mendoza is sitting pretty. She could take a crack at becoming “Latina Jane” (an allusion to Byrne, Chicago’s first female mayor). And if, by chance, she were to run for mayor and fall short, she’d have her comptroller’s to fall back on through 2022.

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Is Chance sufficient enough to make Enyia more than “Miss One Percent?”

Amara Enyia is one of the dozen or so people who got into the race for mayor in next year’s election cycle even before Rahm Emanuel withdrew.

She has run for office before, but she’s always been one of those fringy sort-of candidates, as in someone who – when all is said and done – either withdraws prior to Election Day, or else takes about 1 percent of the vote. Getting the support of those who want to cast a ballot for somebody, but can’t bring themselves to back one of the more established candidates.

SO I CAN’T help but wonder if Enyia just had the best day of her political life on Tuesday, or if the entertainer known as Chance the Rapper truly has an over-bloated ego.

Chance, the son of Ken Bennett, who was a federal government official during Barack Obama’s presidential terms, has become a person taking interest in public policy and Chicago’s future.

Which is what caused him to show up at City Hall on Tuesday along with a gathering of his followers to let it be publicly known he supports Enyia for mayor come the Feb. 26 elections.

Can Chance, who in recent months purchased himself rights to a website to make himself a publisher of sorts and who also has offered financial support for projects meant to benefit the Chicago Public Schools, provide Enyia’s political dreams enough of a jolt so that she can compete with the William Daleys, Gery Chicos and Toni Preckwinkles of the political world?

OR DID HE just give her an ego jolt that won’t last much beyond Tuesday and will result in her once again taking 1 percent of the ballots cast come Feb. 26?

I found it interesting to read the Chicago Tribune, which reported Chance said, “I probably won’t ever be running for mayor of this city, but I believe that me and Amara share a vision of what Chicago should be.”

While the Sun-Times had Chance stating to Enyia the much more egotistical, “I’d like to say very narcissistically, if I back you, you have a chance – absolutely.”

ENYIA: Will political dreams become real?

Chance could be an influence if he were to make significant campaign contributions to Enyia in the way that other government officials get themselves prominent financial backers.

WHICH IS WHY it may be more relevant to read Chance saying, “I got a lot of money, so it would be very scary” if he were to donate.

As for Enyia, she is the founder of the Institute for Cooperative Economics and Economic Innovation. The Chicago-raised daughter of Nigerian immigrants, she has bachelors and masters degrees, along with a PhD, and also is a law school graduate.

If anything, Enyia is exactly the kind of hard-driven, enthusiastic and dedicated person that any government official would want to have on their staffs. Someone with knowledge and skills who could get things done and make the elected official look good in the process.

As to how much of that translates into being an actual elected official, that is questionable. We all too often get lesser-minded officials who rely on their cult of personality to sway voters into supporting them; perhaps with the notion that those people will hire qualified staffers to actually do the work.

SO IT WILL be interesting to see if Enyia is capable of rising from the ranks of “staff” to “elected official.”

Could the cult of Chance’s personality give her a boost? Or will the people who showed up at City Hall on Tuesday to cheer her on follow him to some other cause next week, or month or year?

She has been campaigning since August. Is this a big boost?

One other thing. I couldn’t help but notice that Chance’s father is already publicly on board as backing Preckwinkle for mayor. Chance himself says there is a generational split that could cause younger voters to turn on Toni (who is 71).

Will it be a “tense” Thanksgiving this year – one in which Bennett family members go out of their way to avoid political talk? Or will there be a meeting of the minds that unites the family, and many voters, behind a lone candidate?

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Will Garcia's ‘Washington’ tie mean anything to modern-day voters?

One of the facts being brought up repeatedly by those touting the mayoral candidacy of Jesus “Chuy” Garcia is the fact that when he was an alderman, he was aligned with the concerns of then-Mayor Harold Washington.

He was a loyalist to the city’s first black man to become mayor, and throughout the years in various city, state and county government posts has been supportive of issues of concern to African-American voters.

AS THOUGH THE African-American segment of the electorate ought to naturally be gravitating to Garcia in his political battle for votes against Mayor Rahm Emanuel and seven others come the Feb. 24 municipal elections.

Anybody with political sense, however, ought to realize that life is not that simple on Election Day. Garcia is going to have to aggressively seek such votes if he wants to have a chance at winning election – or even forcing Emanuel into a run-off election come April 7.

Evidence of that ought to have been seen this week by the mayoral campaign of Amara Enyia, whose reaction to learning that her nominating petitions were being challenged and that she would have to endure an expensive legal battle to try to stay on the ballot (and likely get only 1 percent of the vote if she succeeded) was to withdraw.

Enyia, whose motivation for running for mayor even though she’s never held elective office before, was her disgust for Emanuel in the position. She wants him out. So to continue her cause of wanting Anybody but Rahm as mayor, she ended her campaign with an endorsement.

ENYIA, HEAD OF the Austin neighborhood Chamber of Commerce and a native of suburban University Park who has chosen to live her adult life in the city proper, is backing 2^nd Ward Alderman Robert Fioretti’s mayoral campaign.

Fioretti, not Garcia. Even though some had tried to claim that as a daughter of immigrants from Nigeria, Enyia might somewhat comprehend the life story of Garcia, who is an immigrant from Mexico who has lived the bulk of his life in Chicago.

Although race has the tendency to complicate human issues, even when Anglo people aren’t involved.

Enyia, in her public comments, didn’t bad-mouth Garcia. She kept it to praise of Fioretti, saying she thought he “is better positioned” to beat Emanuel. Although various polls I have seen have generally indicated that Fioretti and Garcia are pretty much tied for second place behind Emanuel, with the other candidates struggling for whatever leftover votes will exist.

ALTHOUGH I WONDER if she is in line with much of the trash-talk rhetoric that gets spewed by too many people whenever ethnicity comes up in discussion. And it’s not just black people not liking Latinos; I’ve heard way too much stupid talk from Latino officials who want to maintain distance between themselves and black people.

This kind of nonsense could well be what keeps Garcia from being anything other than the dominant candidate in Spanish-speaking enclaves – and irrelevant in the rest of Chicago.

Now I’m not bad-mouthing African-Americans with this commentary. It is up to the candidate to convince us why we should vote for him. If Garcia ultimately can’t take a significant share of the votes cast on Election Day, then his campaign has nobody to blame but themselves.

Washington won back in ’83 because he was able to sway a share of Latino and white voters to go along with his black voter base. The reason there hasn’t been a black person elected mayor since then is that those candidates couldn’t reach out to anybody who wasn’t just like themselves.

IT WOULD BE nice for the Garcia campaign, if they’re to have a chance at winning election, to learn that lesson from the Harold Washington days and reach out to people. Many black voters will feel just like Enyia if Garcia doesn’t give them a reason to vote for him.

Otherwise, the member of the Cook County Board who just got re-elected last month to a four-year term in office would be better off focusing on his duties there, instead of wasting his time doing a Don Quixote impersonation and jousting at windmills he believes to be Rahm Emanuel!

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