Too little, too late for Preckwinkle?

I remember back to the 1998 election cycle for Illinois governor – the one in which Democrat Glenn Poshard had hopes that Southern Illinois would prevail over the rest of the state and make him governor.

It didn’t happen. Republican George Ryan took advantage of Chicago apathy toward Poshard along with solid voter bases in Republican parts of the state, to prevail on Election Day.

ALTHOUGH THERE WAS one point in time when the Poshard people felt optimistic. It was in the autumn when their operatives started spouting the word that a news development would become public in about two weeks – one that they insisted was so shocking and appalling that it would ensure a Poshard victory.

As I recall, it was about two weeks later that the public became aware of that accident involving an illicitly-licensed truck driver that resulted in the deaths of children.

Which later turned into a matter of Ryan’s political people accepting bribes and Ryan’s willingness to look the other way – so long as campaign donations kept coming in.

In short, the first hint of the stink that later would result in Ryan having to spend just over five years in federal prison.

NOT THAT IT made one bit of electoral difference. Because by that point in time, Poshard’s public perception amongst many voters was so low that there was nothing that could have revived him.

Will 'dead kids' work for Preckwinkle … 

If anything, all it did was reduced the size of the landslide by which Ryan would have won. It may have caused many people to decide that a vote just wasn’t worth the time to take to cast in that election cycle.

So why am I bringing up this political history from some two decades ago?

Because it popped into my mind when I learned Wednesday that mayoral hopeful Toni Preckwinkle IS going to use the final five days of the election cycle to air campaign ads meant to devastate the electoral chances of a victory by Lori Lightfoot.

THE CAMPAIGN AD is meant to remind us of a fire on the city’s West Side – one in which four children were killed. How is this relevant?

… any better than they did for Poshard?

It was during a time when Lightfoot was on the city payroll as chief of staff of the Office of Emergency Management and Communications. Which means she was in charge of the 911 emergency dispatch system.

Which ultimately took the blame for the fact that firefighters were not properly sent to the fire scene in time to make a difference. The courts called for sanctions, particularly since they claimed city officials – including Lightfoot – were “shockingly lax” and “cavalier” in their attitude toward addressing the problem.

Or, as Preckwinkle has a narrator say in her advertising spot that we’re likely to hear a lot of in coming days, “With lives on the line, Lori Lightfoot didn’t bring in the light, she covered up the truth.”

TONI PRECKWINKLE IS resorting to trying to smear the blood of long-dead children on Lightfoot in hopes that it will shock and appall so many voters from jumping on the Lightfoot bandwagon – and perhaps shift back to supporting her desires to be mayor.

Will voters believe allegations against Lightfoot?

It just seems so much like the Poshard tactic; resorting to the images of dead children to try to make people appalled at the very idea of a “Mayor Lori” serving at City Hall. Or course, it didn’t work for Glenn. Which is why I’m skeptical it will serve Toni any better.

It may shock and appall some would-be voters into not casting a ballot for Lightfoot. But I can’t help but think that Preckwinkle has already sustained so much damage to her public image that there’s nothing to be done to revive her electoral chances.

If anything, use of such a tactic may merely convince some voters that both of these candidates are unworthy of our support. Could it make some of us wish that Bill Daley’s mayoral campaign could have prevailed and that we were voting for “Mayor Daley III” when our votes are tallied come Tuesday?

  -30-

When an Election Day endorsement doesn’t mean a whole heck of a lot

There were those people who expected this election cycle for Chicago mayor to ultimately come down to a political brawl between candidates Toni Preckwinkle and Bill Daley.

Preckwinkle wishes she could claim … 

With that in mind, it would seem like it somehow ought to be significant that the Daleys are now throwing in their lot with Preckwinkle. But not really!

IT MAY MORE well be evidence that an endorsement can be cheap. Just like talk itself.

Actually, Bill Daley has pretty much kept quiet since that night in late February when he fell short of having enough votes to qualify for the ongoing run-off election that will take place April 2.

The endorsement proper came from John Daley, as in one of Bill’s brothers and one of the many men who can say they’re a son to one-time Mayor Richard J. Daley.

John is the one who’s saying people ought to cast a vote for Preckwinkle over the campaign of Lori Lightfoot.

WHETHER THAT WILL mean much in the way of generating political support has yet to be determined. We’ll have to wait and see whether anybody is swayed by the idea of the Daley name taking a stance in this run-off.

… to have the political backing of Daley … 

Personally, this strikes me as one of those formality endorsements. As in it’s being done for the sake of saying he took a stance – rather than because he actually cares much about which candidate actually prevails.

Either that, or John Daley himself is incredibly eager for a political promotion.

For John Daley is a member of the Cook County Board. He even has the title of “finance chairman,” which does put him in a position of authority and makes him someone whose judgment on issues often is deferred to.

AND IF BY chance Preckwinkle manages to prevail in the mayoral election, it would create a vacancy for the board president’s position. A spot that would be filled by the other county board members from amongst their ranks.

… and Obama.

Meaning John Daley could find himself in line to become the county board president for the next three-plus years. Considering he’s the Daley brother who often is thought of as the one whose political ambitions are on a smaller scale than those of Rich or Bill, it would be ironic if he wound up becoming the highest-ranking Daley in our local political scene.

In fact, it would be the real kicker if Bill Daley’s mayoral loss set the stage for John to become the county board president.

Of course, the Daley endorsement isn’t the only “big name” one that Preckwinkle would like to have these days. Much has been made of how she wanted to have Barack and Michelle Obama make some sort of statement of support on her behalf.

HOPING THAT THE Obama influence could still linger over Chicago sufficiently enough to sway some people to actually get off their keisters and cast ballots for Toni.

Barack backing didn't help Quinn

Unfortunately for Preckwinkle, the Obamas have decided to keep quiet this election cycle after all. They’ll cast their ballots (via absentee from their home in the D.C. metro area), but they’re not making anything in the way of public statements about who people should vote for.

Then again, perhaps they’re remembering the 2014 election cycle when Obama made a point of a late endorsement in support of Pat Quinn for governor. It didn’t help. We still got Bruce Rauner’s one-term stint as guv.

Perhaps Toni has become so bogged down in the nonsense that could take her down to mayoral defeat that Barack and Michelle just figure it’s better to remain silent, than open one’s mouth and remove all doubt about being a fool.

  -30-

14 more ‘shopping’ days ‘til we narrow down the field for a new Chgo mayor

We’re two weeks away from Election Day, although some people have taken the time to cast their ballots already.

Chicago's next mayor?

Not that it’s all too clear who the people are leaning toward at this point. One of the drawbacks of a 14-candidate field for mayor where “undecided” is leading everybody else is that it’s not all as clear as the polls would have us believe.

THE LATEST POLLS may well show Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and one-time White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley as the top two vote-getters. But they’re not dominant.

There’s always the chance that the “margin for error” factor that is inherent in polls is undercutting someone else to the point where they may wind up being amongst the top two candidates once the votes are actually counted. The very reason why the old cliché about the “only poll that matters is the one on Election Day” is ever so true.

There’s also the confusion of the early voting process that theoretically gives somebody a chance to have a head start on building their base for Election Day.

But until Monday, all early voting took place at the downtown offices of the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners. Anybody who wanted to cast their vote already had to take a trip downtown – and I’m not sure how many people are that politically motivated.

ACTUALLY I DO know. It’s 1,762.

The so-called 'frontrunners' … 

That’s the number of people who went to the early voting center during the past couple of weeks. That figure is bound to get a significant boost in the next few days, as now is the point in which an early voting center will open up in each of the city’s 50 wards.

But it may also be a time period in which confusion reigns. As in one in which the lack of a clear front-runner will make people inclined to wait until the last minute before deciding just who it is they’d like to see become the successor to Rahm Emanuel as mayor.

Why rush into things, many may think? They may wind up voting for a ‘loser’!

… for a spot in April 2 run-off

AND BY LOSER, I don’t mean someone who didn’t get the most votes. I mean someone who may later turn out to be totally incompetent for the mayoral post.

What I personally am trying to figure out is just how much of the ‘undecided’ vote will remain undecided enough to not bother casting a ballot.

I don’t doubt municipally-minded voters will believe this is an excessively important office for which to cast a ballot. But I also wonder how many people will come to the conclusion that none of the 14 are worthy of their vote.

How many are going to feel contempt for the concept of having to vote for the least-inept mayoral candidate available? How many will decide it’s just not worth their time or effort to show up – either at an early voting center or at their polling place come Feb. 26?

IN WHICH CASE, it may wind up being that all 14 candidates will get a slight boost in the poll percentages that show them all basically piled up on top of each other in terms of voter support.

How loud will Enyia scream IF she falls short?

It means that the Feb. 26 election is likely to produce a result with some two-thirds of Chicagoans casting votes for someone other than the two who qualify for an April 2 run-off.

Which means the ultimate factor in deciding who will become Chicago’s next mayor may wind up being the candidate whom somebody could support as their compromise pick, if their preferred candidate can’t get enough voter support.

This may well be the election cycle where being second-best in the minds of voters two weeks from now will have the end result of being the person who gets to take the oath of office come May.

  -30-

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.

  -30-

EXTRA: Ricketts family not a united front. Or are they more than we think?

Call it odd, not that the Ricketts family is one of significant wealth that feels compelled to use their financial power to influence our government.

Ricketts family has its hands … 

But that the family most definitely isn’t one that is united behind any given candidate or cause.

THE PATER FAMILIAS of the Ricketts clan is Joe, who made the family fortune by founding TD Ameritrade. His children serve on the board. The one thing that does unite them is that the family is the primary owner of the Chicago Cubs, with son Tom serving as the ball club’s chairman.

In fact, the ball club is a factor in the family’s politics. They want to bolster the area surrounding Wrigley Field to help enhance the team’s profitability, and have felt that Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Alderman Tom Tunney have been standing in the way.

So it isn’t a surprise that Tom came out with his own endorsement for mayor and offer of some campaign cash ($25,000, for now, for William Daley’s campaign). What should we make of the fact that Tom’s sister (Joe’s daughter) Laura has her own pick?

She’s backing the mayoral bid of Susana Mendoza, while also having made donations to the mayoral aspirations of Mendoza, Toni Precwinkle and Lori Lightfoot. For what it’s worth, Laura Ricketts has a past history of being the family’s Democrat.

… in many different … 

THE IDEA SHE’D be inclined to want to see a woman prevail isn’t surprising. But just how will the two of them co-exist? Or do they just have one of those relationships where politics is off the table for discussion at family gatherings?

Or is Laura used to be the odd-person out amongst the family politically, since she is a supporter of Democrats while the rest of the family has been amongst the financial supporters of President Donald Trump

… and varied political places

With brother Todd, who nearly got a cabinet appointment last year from Trump, serving as Republican National Committee finance chair and being appointed a member of Trump Victory Committee – which is supposed to be the connection between the RNC and the Trump presidential campaign.

So does this make Chicago Cubs baseball the uniting factor between individuals of varying political leanings? Or is it just evidence that White Sox fans are the Chicagoans sane enough in their approach to electoral activity?

  -30-

Second choice likely to be important in upcoming mayoral campaign

Will April 2 be a runoff between Preckwinkle … 

The 2019 election cycle – the one in which Chicagoans will be asked to pick a new mayor – is truly going to be unique. Because for most would-be voters, it’s going to be more likely that one’s second choice is the one that ultimately will prevail.

The candidate field is now down to 14 people with dreams that they someday will be the one who gets to call themselves “Mr. (or Madame) Mayor.”

… and Mayor Daley III?

WHICH MAKES IT oh so likely that no one will take a majority vote come Feb. 26. It will result in a run-off election between the top two vote getters come April 2.

Heck, a most recent poll by the We Ask America group (and paid for by the Chicago Sun-Times) says no one has more than 13 percent support, and there are several candidates who barely show up at 2 or 3 percent support.

It means that when people go to their polling place at the end of February (or to their early voting center), they’d better have a good idea of a backup candidate. The person they can bring themselves to support even if their fantasy mayoral hopeful winds up being one of the schmoes who finishes too low to qualify for the run-off.

CHICO: Does Gery have momentum?

Which also means the key factor in determining who will prevail may well be which candidates have such intense voter support bases that they’re convinced it has to be their guy (or gal), or nobody at all!

WILL THE KIND of people who want Willie Wilson, the black millionaire, to be mayor (only 9 percent support for a fourth place finish, according to the poll) find the thought of anybody else winning to be so repulsive that they wind up not voting in the April run-off?

WILSON: Will his supporters consider anyone else?

Or go to the other extreme. Are the kind of people who want to envision some law-and-order type candidate who’d cast votes for former police Superintendent Garry McCarthy (3.7 percent for a seventh place finish, the poll says) willing to bother voting at all?

MENDOZA:Can she beat only Toni?

Anything is possible, particularly since there already are a significant number of people who haven’t made up their minds yet who to cast a ballot for.

Literally, the poll shows just over one-quarter of potential voters don’t know yet who they’ll vote for. And they are going to decide the outcome. Because right now, it’s really too close to call.

THIS WE ASK America poll has a 3.88 percent margin of error – with the Toni Preckwinkle and Bill Daley campaigns on top, but with only a 0.6 percent difference between them.

And Gery Chico, along with Wilson, also fall within that margin of error compared to Preckwinkle.

Meaning we essentially have a four-way tie for the top slot, with Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza’s mayoral bid being only slightly behind.

The same poll went so far as to say that if a run-off somehow comes down to a Preckwinkle/Mendoza brawl (the one that many political geeks deep down are hoping for), it becomes a Mendoza “victory.

BUT THE LONG-SHOT could be if Mendoza even finishes first or second come Feb. 26.

LIGHTFOOT: Lingering near the bottom

My original guess was that all the infighting that is now taking place will result in candidates knocking each other out of the running – and that we could wind up with a third incarnation of “Mayor Daley” in charge of Chicago municipal government.

Even though Chico, at 9.3 percent and third place, is going around spewing thoughts that he has the momentum that will see him be the guy who ultimately prevails.

Then, there’s Lori Lightfoot, the former Assistant U.S. Attorney and head of the Chicago Police Board, who has tried to claim her candidacy deserves respect because she got in the running way back before Rahm Emanuel decided not to try for re-election. Lightfoot is ninth, with 2.8 percent voter support – which is better than the 0.9 percent support that former Alderman Robert Fioretti is drawing these days.

  -30-

Will Chicagoans have to choose between memory of Dan Ryan, Obama?

Will Dan Ryan subside someday … 

Bill Daley’s campaign for Chicago mayor is trying to gain some attention these days with a suggestion that a city-based expressway be named (renamed, actually) for Barack Obama.

Daley offers up a line of logic that other Chicago expressways are named for John F. Kennedy and Dwight Eisenhower – so why not give a president actually from Chicago the same honor?

… to Barack Obama?

ALTHOUGH SOME PEOPLE are speculating that this gesture by Daley is merely something meant to try to sway a share of the black vote to actually think about casting a ballot for him. Something with symbolic value, but little to no actual value in terms of public service.

But what is really causing a stink amongst some people is that Daley is suggesting a portion of Interstates 90 and 94 be used as the Obama Expressway. As in the same portion of highway that for years has been known as the Dan Ryan Expressway!

I-90/94, northwest to O'Hare

State Rep. LaShawn Ford, D-Chicago, who led the effort to rename a central Illinois part of Interstate 55 for Obama, claims that the law prohibits Ryan’s name from being removed. Although Illinois Department of Transportation officials say there are procedures that could allow for the name change.

I-290, west to Tri-State

Although they also told the Chicago Sun-Times they discourage too many changes, saying it can cause confusion amongst the driving public.

SO WHAT’S GOING to become of the Dan Ryan Expressway? Has Dan really outlived his usefulness as a namesake for THE major street cutting through the South Side leading people into and away from the downtown area.

I-55 southwest to Obama Expy

Has it truly been so long that Ryan’s name no longer has political significance? Is “the Ryan” in reference to a daily commute going to be an example of someone thinking in a 20^th Century reference.

Will people living in Chicago in the late 21^st Century think of “the Obama” as the main way of travelling from 95^th Street all the way into the heart of the city – with that view of the one-time Sears Tower looming in the distance; growing taller and taller as we drive closer and closer to it?

Or is the name “Dan Ryan” too sacred to Chicago’s character that it would seem sacrilegious to think of changing it. What next; taking the name “Harold Washington” off of the main building of the Chicago Public Library?

Is Rkchard J.'s name sacrosanct?

OR REMOVING “RICHARD J. Daley from the downtown Civic Center (as in the building with the ‘Picasso” statue out front)?

Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that many people don’t know who Dan Ryan, Jr. (there also was a Sr. who was politically significant) was.

Both served on the Cook County Board, with Jr. serving as a commissioner from the 1920s to 1954, when he became county board President – a post he held until his death in 1961.

During his time as an elected official, he took a special interest in the development of highways through Chicago, which is what caused the county board to think him worthy of presidents and a former governor (Adlai E. Stevenson II) when it comes to being namesakes for the city’s expressway system.

Will William gain support from Obama move?

NOW IF DALEY (as in William) winds up losing the upcoming mayoral election, this could wind up becoming a moot point. Who knows if anyone else will feel compelled to take up this issue.

It may strike some as an issue far too trivial to expend much time and energy on.

Although I must admit to having one reason to kind of hoping that an Obama Expressway in Chicago becomes a reality someday. We’re in an age where some amongst us are determined to do whatever they can think of to erase memories of Obama or his legacy from our society.

The idea of a highway in Chicago that is federally funded and named for Obama? It would almost be the equivalent of a middle finger in the faces of all those who find things to admire about this Age of Trump we’re now in.

  -30-

Daley the big bucks (sort of) candidate this time around in ’19 election cycle

I’m not sure what to think of the fact that William Daley’s bid for Chicago mayor is the one that has the campaign fund overflowing with largess.

DALEY: The 'big bucks' guy of '19

The Chicago Tribune reported that Daley’s fund now exceeds $3 million – more than any of the other people with dreams of serving as mayor of the city of Chicago. Daley’s list of donors even includes a Kennedy – it seems that one-time Rep. Joe Kennedy II, D-Mass., wrote out a check for $10,000.

BUT CONSIDERING THAT in the last mayoral election, Rahm Emanuel managed to raise some $24.4 million for his own benefit (much of which paid for all those television spots that asked voters to give Rahm a “second chance” as mayor back in 2015), it would seem that Daley is lagging behind.

Then again, we just finished a gubernatorial race that saw the two candidates – incumbent Bruce Rauner and ultimate victor J.B. Pritzker – come up with in excess of just over $200 million to pay for their campaigns.

By those standards, Bill Daley and his $3.1 million is nothing but a political pauper.

Then again, it is evidence of just how ridiculously wealthy the two governor candidates were, and how both probably suffer from delusional personality characteristics that they were able to spend so much of their own personal wealth in order to try to get elected to office.

KENNEDY: Kicked in cash to help elect a Daley

SO MUCH SO that the Illinois governor race of 2018 is a record-setter – at least until someone in 2020 decides to waste away their own fortune to try to buy a political office for themselves.

Neither Daley, nor any of the other candidates running for mayor in 2019 seem capable of doing quite that. Instead, they seem intent on funding their campaigns the old-fashioned way.

PRITZKER: Used to be Dem donor

As in soliciting donations from politically-motivated people who may, or may not, be hoping to buy political goodwill from the people they are giving money to.

If anything, it hurts that Rauner and Pritzker spent so much on themselves. Since in the case of Rauner, he had become the most significant financier of Republican candidates for office.

RAUNER: Would anybody take his money now?

WHILE PRITZKER HAS a personal history of being THE wealthy guy that Democrats turn to for checks of significant dollar amounts to pay for all those expenses that campaigns incur to try to sway voters to cast their ballots for them.

I suspect both men are now tapped out, financially and emotionally, from wanting to think about donating any funds to someone else. Plus, the fact that there are so many people tossing their names into the hat – so to speak – to run for mayor.

It’s going to be hard for any one candidate to build up a significant fund. This could wind up being a pauper’s election cycle – by comparison to recent years.

So maybe it makes sense that Daley, the son and brother of past Chicago mayors and a former White House chief of staff and cabinet member in his own right, is the one with significant political contacts that he’s going to have more money than anyone else at this stage of the mayoral game.

I CERTAINLY DON’T see someone like Lori Lightfoot, or even Susana Mendoza, being capable of making trips (as Daley did) to Boston and Washington, D.C., where he participated in fundraisers for his campaign for Chicago mayor and got donations from assorted Kennedy clan types and one-time Bill Clinton allies.

EMANUEL: Could have outspent everybody, IF he ran again

The trick is to figure whether this financial edge is an advantage or a millstone for Daley.

Because it could be that Daley will appear to be too far removed from the nitty-gritty of Chicago problems by associating with so many out-of-towners – the kind of voters who think city politics is the most important type of government because they pick up your trash or clear the streets of snow during the winter.

The kind of governing that his father, Richard J., so excelled at over all other issues, and which is the reason anybody bothers to pay attention to the Daley name when it runs for any other political post.

  -30-

Will Election ’19 create lasting grudge between Preckwinkle, Mendoza?

It was 1992, and Bill Lipinski and Marty Russo wound up having to run against each other for a seat in Congress – the Republican-drawn boundaries for that decade wound up pitting the two in a head-to-head brawl.

MENDOZA: Prevailing in fight thus far

Lipinski of the Southwest Side and Russo of south suburban Cook County actually had a reputation as political colleagues who also shared a friendship. Yet that election cycle saw the two engage in such hard-core politicking that the friendship did not survive Lipinski’s eventual victory.

SO IT CERTAINLY wouldn’t be unheard of if tensions arise sufficiently that Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza wind up despising each other by the time Feb. 26 (Election Day) arrives.

Preckwinkle and Mendoza, of course, are among the nearly two dozen people with dreams of becoming Chicago’s new mayor. Preckwinkle is showing just how hard-core a politician her time as county board president and alderman have made her – she’s trying to get Mendoza kicked off the ballot.

Because the perception is that Preckwinkle and Mendoza could be the two most legitimate candidates. Preckwinkle’s chances benefit if Mendoza is removed from the political equation.

But the investigators looking into Toni’s allegations that Mendoza’s nominating petitions had way too many invalid signatures of support to be legitimate are finding that they’re not anywhere near as flawed as she’d have us believe them to be.

NOT THAT MENDOZA is totally in the clear. A hearing officer may have dismissed one of Preckwinkle’s allegations, but three other charges are still pending. An Elections Board hearing officer is giving the Preckwinkle campaign a chance to produce evidence to back up her claims against Mendoza.

Another hearing is scheduled for Sunday, and eventually the Elections Board will render a ruling. Which is going to wind up in court – with Mendoza fighting for survival if she gets kicked off the ballot, and Preckwinkle battling if Susana survives.

I found it interesting to learn that the hearing officer dismissed the charges related to a pattern of fraudulent behavior by the Mendoza campaign. If any legitimacy had been found, it could be the basis of criminal charges against the campaign.

PRECKWINKLE: Playing hardball politics

Meaning that any of the continuing allegations are likely to be pure partisan politics. Considering that Election Day is purely political, that’s natural. But it’s not like anybody’s in danger of going to jail because of any of this.

IF ANYTHING, THE challenge process is about political harassment. Because all of the time and money that Mendoza has had to spend on defending herself and justifying her presence on the ballot is taken away from efforts she could have engaged in to try to convince people that she ought to cast their mayoral vote for her.

Considering that she had to wait until after her Election Day victory for Illinois comptroller before she could start campaigning for Chicago mayor, she already had a strike against her.

Build up enough strikes, and you could wind up taking down the Mendoza campaign before she can make it to a run-off election come April 2.

The Eddies, both Burke … 

Which means Preckwinkle is playing hard-ball. She’s engaging in tactics that are bound to create hard feelings. Are these bound to turn the Preckwinkle/Mendoza relationship into one of political people who wind up despising each other? Of course, Mendoza isn’t the only person Preckwinkle is playing politics with – she’s already said she’ll fire the police superintendent AND greatly restrict long-time Alderman Edward Burke when she becomes mayor.

NOT THAT SUCH tactics would be unheard of. It’s not uncommon for people in politics to detest each other when they think nobody’s paying attention. In fact, that may be the reality that many people don’t understand when they complain about too many Democrats in government.

… and Johnston, could face Toni's wrath

The Democratic establishment has so many cliques that can’t stand each other. They’re nowhere near as united as Republicans are.

In fact, I once had a Republican political operative explain to me that all these cliques are the very reason it was pointless to try to cooperate with Democrats.

Although I’ve also heard some speculate that the Preckwinkle/Mendoza rivalry that is developing could very well be what costs both of them a serious chance of winning – and what could wind up giving us Mayor Daley III.

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Only 49 more days ‘til “real” election cycle begins – the Chicago mayoral

Is political matchup between Preckwinkle … 

Seven weeks from Wednesday is a date that I’m sure many people will be awaiting, depending on their own political perspective.

It is either seven more weeks until the current election cycle – the one that will give Illinois a governor, legislators and other constitutional officers – is over and done with. Or it is seven more weeks until we can forget about this layer of government and get on with what they want to believe is the real government.

… and Daley more intriguing … 

AS IN THE election for mayor and the 50 members of the City Council who will oversee the municipal activity of Chicago.

Yes, it is an overly parochial attitude to take that people who live outside of the Chicago city limits have government that doesn’t mean a thing. And that our state officials ought to be subservient to those officials from the city.

But I also don’t doubt there are people who are tired of the rhetorical trash talk coming from the governor candidates and will never get intrigued by who is running for attorney general or comptroller.

They probably don’t have a clue who their state legislators are.

… than the 'millionaires' brawl … 

FOR THOSE PEOPLE who want to think the state government doesn’t matter, just keep in mind that Bill Daley has kicked off his own campaigning for mayor in the Feb. 26 elections (with possible run-offs April 2) by saying he expects newly-elected Gov. J.B. Pritzker to be supportive of initiatives that will help Chicago resolve some significant financial issues the city has.

A concept that I’m sure grossly offends Illinoisans from that one-third of the state’s population lying outside the Chicago metropolitan area’s boundaries.

I actually wonder if Bruce Rauner’s lone chance of prevailing on Nov. 6 and getting himself re-elected to a second four-year term as governor is if enough non-Chicago voters decide to band together and Vote for Bruce to keep the city from becoming – from their perspective – too powerful.

… we're now getting between Rauner/Pritzker?

So long as ideologues getting all worked up about social issues such as abortion or immigration see flaws in Rauner because he hasn’t been hardline right-wing enough to appease them, then Pritzker is likely to prevail.

WHICH IS WHY many voters are acting as though Nov. 6’s Election Day is already a done deal; and why they’re probably waiting for the activity that decides who will be the replacement as mayor for Rahm Emanuel – who already has made public his first act.

He has a book deal – one that will let him settle scores against everyone who he thinks has wronged him during his eight years as mayor and will keep his name in the public eye while he decides what he wants to do with the rest of his life.

That book, which Emanuel has yet to write, is expected to be published by the year 2020 – around about the same time that Chicago White Sox fans think their favorite ballclub will morph itself into a contending ballclub.

Which may, or may not, be a fantasy in its own right.

WITH THE MAYORAL election cycle turning into a brawl between Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and former White House chief of staff Bill Daley, with former school board President Gery Chico saying Tuesday he’s interested in getting into the mix and others speculating about likely Rep. Jesus Garcia, D-Ill., and Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza becoming involved, the upcoming political fight is taking on a heft that will make many eager to see this “governor nonsense” over and done with.

What if Mendoza  swings ahead of all?

It definitely has taken on more heft than it had just a couple of weeks ago when it was Emanuel likely running for re-election against a dozen or so lightweights whose only real strategy for winning was that they could force Emanuel into a run-off election and beat him by taking the “Anybody But Rahm” vote.

Now, it’s more likely the Chicago city elections will produce a mayor who actually has people intrigued by his/her qualifications for the office – instead of feeling like a default choice.

And as for governor? It would amuse me if Pritzker wound up spending all those millions of dollars of the family fortune to buy himself a political post, only to have someone like Mendoza (who currently holds a post four notches below his in the state pecking order) somehow swing around him and gain the more prestigious (to some) political post for herself!

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