EXTRA: A 20-vote lead, will it hold?

Tuesday was the final day by which Chicago Elections Board officials had to validate and count provisional ballots from the April 7 elections, while also processing absentee ballots that were put in the mail (and post-marked accordingly) by Election Day.

The final day of the canvass and the announcement of results for those municipal elections is April 28.

FOR MOST POLITICAL people, it doesn’t matter. There was no way Jesus Garcia would close a 75,000 vote gap to overtake Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

But in the 10^th Ward (the land where Indiana is the nearby reality that gives us a Whiting-based oil refinery that really stinks up the air), there was always the chance of a last-minute shift in votes that could alter the aldermanic election results.

Challenger Susan Sadlowski Garza went from a seven-vote lead over Alderman John Pope on Election Night, to an 89-vote lead once all the precincts were counted to a 33-vote lead once the first rounds of absentee ballots were counted.

As of Tuesday, she was down to a 20-vote lead. That’s 5,825 votes for Garza to 5,805 for Pope. As in Garza, a Chicago Teachers Union official who got in the race originally thinking she’d be a running-mate of sorts to Karen Lewis’ mayoral aspirations, has 50.09 percent voter support.

THAT’S CLOSE! THAT’S got to hurt for Pope – a 16-year member of the City Council – if he comes that close to winning re-election, but doesn’t. It would take something of historic proportions for him to prevail now!

By this point, it would seem that Garza is going into the history books along with Lyndon Johnson’s 1948 victory for the U.S. Senate – an 87-vote victory margin, albeit with over 1 million votes cast to the 11,600-plus for the 10th Ward election.

Someone may wind up tagging her with a nickname as memorable as “Landslide Lyndon.” Right now, my mind is a blank. Although I’m sure Garza will settle for the label that ultimately is the only one that matters.

“Winner.”

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A mere 33-vote lead and declining; could Rahm ally retain aldermanic seat?

The aldermanic run-off election for the 10^th Ward (far Southeast Chicago) is getting closer and closer as people try to figure out whether Alderman John Pope actually lost his bid for re-election to a fifth term in office.


Pope, who has been an alderman since 1999 and either is credited, or trashed, for being a solid supporter (100 percent, Pope critics claim) of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, got the largest number of votes back in February, but not enough for a majority.


WHICH IS WHY he had to endure a run-off election against Susan Garza, a counselor at Jane Addams Elementary School in the East Side neighborhood and an official with the Chicago Teachers Union.

It would seem that most of the people who backed one of the other five aldermanic candidates in February united last week in their opposition to giving Pope a chance (if he makes it through another full four-year term) to be a 20-year alderman.

Because when all the votes in the 36 precincts of the 10^th Ward were counted following Election Day, Garza had an 89-vote lead. She went so far as to declare herself the winner.

Although Pope was more low-key, realizing that this election in a part of Chicago often ignored by the rest of the city (although which I pay attention to because it’s my birthplace, the South Chicago neighborhood to be exact) could still swing in his favor.

IT WAS, AFTER all, just an 89-vote lead – so close that both candidates could accurately say they got 50 percent of the vote (Garza rounds down, while Pope rounds up).

There also were the dreaded absentee ballots, dreaded at least by those who want simple election outcomes that are known by about 9 p.m. on Election Night. Most definitely not those where we have to wait until the April 28 deadline for the Chicago Elections Board to complete its canvass.

For what it’s worth, by the end of the first day of counting absentee ballots, Garza was down to a 44-vote lead.

The elections board’s website indicates that by the resumption of counting on Monday, Garza has a 33-vote lead over Pope – 5,797 votes for Garza to 5,764 votes for Pope.

COULD WE WIND up with coming days chipping into that lead more and more to the point where Pope winds up the victor because of those people who wanted to cast ballots, but for whatever reason couldn’t make it to either an early voting center or a polling place last week?

After all, it takes only a one-vote margin to win an election. Who’s to say how funky the counting could get?

It is what motivated Garza’s supporters on Saturday to hold what they called an “End Corruption!” rally outside of Pope’s aldermanic office on 106^th Street. Accusations were tossed out by Garza backers about how Pope backers harassed and threatened people, while also mailing in absentee ballots that had been time-stamped prior to the April 7 election date.

Even though the rules say that the key to a valid absentee ballot is that the postmark on the mailing be prior to Election Day. So ballots could still, theoretically, be showing up and wind up being counted. A stamp on the ballot wouldn’t mean anything!

UNLESS YOU BELIEVE the incumbent alderman is engaged in a conspiracy with the U.S. Postal Department, this one may be a bit of a stretch. Although the whole concept of votes still coming in and being counted relies so much on the public trust that it is no wonder some people are willing to believe the worst.

It is why Chicago Sun-Times reports are intriguing about how the identity of those who cast absentee ballots from the 10^th Ward were inadvertently revealed. Making it possible theoretically that someone is trying to keep track as to which people voted the “wrong” way and need to be punished.

So for that ward most of us only notice on those occasions we’re looking down on it while driving through the Chicago Skyway, we don’t know the final count yet.

We’re going to have to wait and see whether it is Pope or Garza who winds up filing the request for a formal recount of Election Day results.

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EXTRA: On the shores of the Calumet (lake/river), 89 votes is victory margin

That final precinct is in. Aldermanic hopeful Susan Garza has an 89-vote lead over 10^th Ward Alderman John Pope. Some 5,747 ballots cast for Garza, compared to 5,658 for the incumbent, according to the Chicago Board of Elections.


The Chicago Teachers Union official and educator who campaigned on a platform that Pope was nothing more than a lackey for Mayor Rahm Emanuel may well have won!


OF COURSE, THERE’S also absentee ballots that may, or may not, change the vote margin. And the loser may well demand a recount, what with how close it is.

Although Garza gathered Wednesday night with supporters at Viveros, 9500 S. Avenue L, for what seems to be as close to a victory party as one can have without tempting fate.

“Our campaign will remain vigilant in observing the process by which (absentee ballots) are handled and counted, so the voice of the people is not stolen,” Garza said.

As for the 16^th Ward, Toni Foulkes has a 112-vote lead over Stephanie Coleman, Chris Taliaferro has a 500-vote lead over 29^th Ward Alderman Deborah Graham and 43^rd Ward Alderman Caroline Vickrey has a six-vote lead over Michele Smith. All with all precincts counted, the city Elections Board says.

SO IS ELECTION Day over? It depends on who you ask.

The ultimate “expert” on this issue may well be actor John Belushi’s “Blutto Blutarsky” character from “Animal House” when he screamed, “Did you say ‘over?’ Nothing is over until we decide it is!”

, in hearing the voices of people who have been ignored for so long, we together were able to upset the status quo and chart a new path for the forgotten 10th Ward," Garza said early Wednesday."Absentee ballots have yet to be counted completely, and our campaign will remain vigilant in observing the process by which they are handled and counted, so the voice of the people is not stolen."A Press Conference has been scheduled.....
WHEN: Tonight April 8th, 7:30PM
WHERE: VIVEROS - 9500 S. Ave.  -30-

EXTRA: Why can’t it be over?!?

I’m sure it’s frustrating for political operatives – you go through the rigamarole of a campaign season, exchange the political blows, the people express their will by voting.

Yet after all that, we still don’t know who won!

THAT SEEMS TO be the case in four of the city’s 50 wards. There are aldermen who don’t know if they have to begin planning for the next four years, or the next couple of weeks as they should clear out their offices and transition into the next part of their lives.

No ward, it seems, is any tighter than the 10^th – that part of Chicago at the far southeast corner filled with lots of contaminated industrial sites and where Indiana is merely the other side of State Line Road and NOT some esoteric concept.

Alderman John Pope, who has been in office since 1999, had 5,465 votes cast for him, compared to 5,472 for Susan Garza – a counselor at Jane Addams Elementary School and an official within the Chicago Teachers Union whose father was a long-time head of the United Steelworkers Union local. So close that both candidates can legitimately claim to have 50 percent of the vote – 50.03 percent and 49.97 percent.

There is one precinct (out of 36 in the ward) where votes still have to be counted, and Garza supporters are optimistic because it seems it is the East Side neighborhood precinct that contains the school itself, at 10810 S. Avenue H.

IT IS A precinct that, back in the Feb. 24 municipal elections, gave Garza 60 percent voter support, with Pope and the other five candidates running then taking the remaining 40 percent.

Garza backers said Wednesday they’re fairly sure they will take that precinct and wind up with more than a seven-vote lead.

Although they say Garza herself plans to wait about a week before any kind of election announcement is made. So we don't know yet if the ward that was the one-time political base of the Vrdolyak clan yet also has had a significant Latino population for decades will finally get its first Latina (by marriage) alderman.

For one thing, there is the potential that absentee ballots were cast in the 10^th Ward, which will still trickle in during the next coming days. Who’s to say a slim Pope lead won’t crop up? They also expect that since the election results will be close no matter what, that a recount of the votes will have to be done.

SO WHILE CLAIMS can be made that the City Council that Mayor Rahm Emanuel will have to deal with during his next term will be less sympathetic (so far, no one who ran for alderman as an Emanuel critic has lost), we don’t know the exact composition of the 50 aldermen.

As Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Jesse Sharkey said Wednesday of the Election results, “the mayor didn’t win the run-off election as much as he survived it.”

On the South Side, the 16^th Ward had a potential Emanuel opponent, Toni Foulkes, leading Stephanie Coleman by 50.96 percent to 49.04 percent. To the west, 29^th Ward challenger Chris Taliaferro is leading Alderman Deborah Graham 52 to 48 percent.

While on the North Side’s 43^rd Ward (including the Lincoln Park neighborhood), incumbent Alderman Michele Smith has just a bare 50.38 percent to 49.62 percent lead over Caroline Vickrey.

SO LIKE IT or not, this election cycle isn’t over yet. April 28 is the date that the Chicago Board of Elections has to complete its canvass and tell us the final official results – so that the transition to the newly-elected officials can take office at noon on May 18.

By then, we will be able to transition directly into the 2016 election cycle, for which some candidates already have started to campaign.

Ah, you have to love the never-ending campaigning for political office!

  -30-

Will ’15 run-off be a boost for Latino political empowerment in Chicago?

Mayor Rahm Emanuel deserves one bit of credit as he begins campaigning for re-election in the run-off election to be held April 7 – he seems to have a clue as to what the political challenge is before him.

He needs to appeal to Latino voters, and on Election Night Rahm used Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., to introduce him – a Latino face talking up Rahm, and even reverting to the Spanish language for part of it.

A REMINDER TO those Latinos who voted for Emanuel in Tuesday’s municipal elections who are now going to face pressure to vote in the run-off for Jesus “Chuy” Garcia.

Who is going to try, amongst other tactics, to make this the chance for the roughly 30 percent of Chicagoans who are of Latin American ethnic origins to assert ourselves politically and elect “one of our own” to the mayor’s post!

I believe that if Garcia hadn’t have done as well as he did in the first part of this election cycle (34 percent of the vote, when many polls had him finishing with somewhere between 17 and 24 percent political support), we wouldn’t have heard from Gutierrez.

It was, after all, an odd match-up – the fact that Gutierrez backed Emanuel’s re-election was more a statement that he thought none of the challengers had what it took to be mayor.

LET’S NOT FORGET that when Emanuel served as chief of staff to President Barack Obama, he was the one that was the brunt of Gutierrez’ constant attacks on Obama’s failure to address immigration reform.

The perception amongst many Latino activists is that it was Emanuel not wanting to be bothered with the politically divisive issue – and that he was willing to let a significant Latino concern (many perceive opposition to the issue as a sign of disrespect in general toward the Latino segment of our society) be continually put on the backburner to try to appease conservative ideologues.

Emanuel as mayor has had to address Latino concerns and try to win over those in Chicago who are primarily of Mexican and Puerto Rican ethnic origins.

Now, Emanuel is going to have to run for re-election against a progressive-minded Democrat (the mayor is more centrist, no matter what the conservative ideologues want to believe about him) born in Mexico and raised in the ethnic Pilsen and Little Village enclaves.

ALL OF THAT is going to come into play during the next six weeks until the final municipal election. That is why Gutierrez got trotted out to be Emanuel’s face!

Gutierrez should be acknowledged for a bit of honesty Tuesday night – he admitted that back in 2011, he was amongst Emanuel’s opponents and was among the roughly 60 percent of Chicago Latinos who voted for one of the two Latino candidates (Gery Chico and Miguel del Valle) who were seeking the post.

Now, he’s going to be amongst the people trying to persuade his constituents to take Rahm seriously. It makes sense for him to be a key player in coming weeks.

Because when one looks at maps of Chicago showing which mayoral candidate prevailed in each of the city’s 50 wards, it becomes clear that Emanuel was the winner across the city EXCEPT for those Southwest Side Mexican-oriented wards and the Northwest Side Puerto Rican-based wards.

THEY ALMOST MATCH up perfectly with the parts of Chicago that are within the weird-shaped congressional district that makes Gutierrez the chief political representative for Latino people.

There are a couple of exceptions – Garcia also prevailed in the 49^th Ward of the Rogers Park neighborhood and the 10^th Ward at the far southeast corner of Chicago that contains some of the city’s oldest Spanish-speaking enclaves.

In that latter ward, there also was a run-off resulting from the aldermanic election – 10^th Ward Ald. John Pope will have to face off against Susan Sadlowski Garza, a career educator and official within the Chicago Teachers Union.

Pope is either praised or criticized within the ward for being an Emanuel backer (a 100 percent voting record of supporting the mayor), while Garza follows the lead of union President Karen Lewis in backing Garcia.

I MENTION THAT ward because it seems Garcia took a slim margin in the mayoral race (48 percent, to 38 percent for Emanuel), while in the aldermanic race Pope prevailed with 44 percent of the vote, compared to 24 percent for Garza.

That would make it seem that there were at least a few (the ward is 63 percent Latino) people who cast their ballots for both Garcia and Pope. Could it be that at least a few of those Latinos will wind up finding it within themselves to back Emanuel come April 7.

City-wide, Emanuel took about 37 percent of the Latino support, compared to just over 52 percent for Garcia. If Emanuel can’t gain a good portion of the remaining 11 percent Latino vote, then he is destined to be a mayoral one-termer just like Michael Bilandic or Jane Byrne.

While Chicagoans at-large will have to endure at least four years of stupid Star Wars-themed jokes about our new mayor’s nickname.

  -30-

Regarding mayor, does anyone care?

I have sensed for quite a while that this year’s mayoral election cycle isn’t exactly getting the people of Chicago all worked up into a political frenzy.

Based on figures from the Chicago Board of Elections, it would seem my observation isn’t that far off – even though I have heard from some diehard backers of the mayoral challengers who insist that contempt felt for Mayor Rahm Emanuel is going to turn out the masses to vote against him!

BUT THE FIGURES reported by the city elections board indicate the number of people who have bothered thus far to show up at polling places across the city for early voting is barely over half the total number who voted early in the 2011 municipal elections for mayor.

Admittedly, there are still a few days left for people to cast ballots in advance of Tuesday’s Election Day. But not that many.

My guess is that 2015 will go into the local history books as a record low for voter turnout. The reality of electoral politics is that when few people bother to vote, the establishment candidate (meaning Emanuel) winds up winning.

He’s got the campaign cash to ensure that voter turnout efforts find the kind of people who don’t have hang-ups about his first four years as mayor AND get them to actually show up to vote.

IT SHOULD ALSO be noted that the 2014 election cycle for governor had record-high numbers of people who used early voting centers, but then produced merely an average voter turnout overall because the number of people who bothered to show up at polling places was pathetic.

Those who cared enough to vote have already bothered to do so. This isn’t exactly a repeat of 1983 when record numbers of newly-registered black voters turned out to put Harold Washington in Hizzoner’s office.

Although it’s interesting to read that mayoral hopeful Willie Wilson is claiming to have polls of his own that differ from all the others because he says they’re ignoring large numbers of black voters who are all peeved by Emanuel’s actions.

But even his own poll shows him finishing in third place – which would still make him a “loser” since only the top two vote-getters advance to a run-off election in the event Emanuel only gets 49.99999 percent (or less) of the vote.

WHAT WE HAVE is an election cycle in which apathy rules. The few wards where there are significant numbers of early voters (according to the elections board) are the ones in which there are competitive aldermanic races.

In the one ward I’m paying particular attention to (the 10^th, down on the city’s Southeast Side – I was born there and have relatives who still live there), it’s probably more significant that candidate Susan Sadlowski Garza is backing Jesus “Chuy” Garcia for mayor, rather than that he’s supporting the former Chicago Teachers Union official for alderman.

Even she may wind up splitting the support of opponents to incumbent Alderman John Pope with the five other challengers – thereby making it possible for Pope to gain a fifth term in the City Council through the same apathy that could keep Emanuel as mayor.

People are resorting to whatever tactics they can conceive of to try to stir up interest amongst the apathetic.

WHICH PROBABLY BEST explains the rant that Garcia engaged in earlier this week – saying the teachers union will go on strike again IF Emanuel is re-elected as mayor. Or the fact that Wilson put out a statement Wednesday saying he wants some direct face time with President Barack Obama, who will be in Chicago on Thursday to back Emanuel AND tout the new Pullman National Park.

Does this mean we need Chuy in order to ensure the teachers don’t walk off the job next fall and cause mass aggravation for parents of children whose daily routines would be disrupted by such a strike?

Or is it really just about reminding us of the fact that Emanuel’s tough talk provoked the teachers union into a week-long strike back in 2012 – and that some of the union officials have long memories and are just as capable of carrying a grudge as is the mayor?

Six more days until Election Day, and 41 more until the run-off – and then our collective migrane headache comes to an end. At least until the ongoing Hillary Clinton “will she or won’t she” kicks into high gear for 2016.

  -30-

Do political firings solve problems? Or merely sweep them under the carpet?

I wonder at times if political people view the hiring/firing process as being the equivalent of the confessional booth.


You know, go in there, tell the priest how much of a sinner you were, and you're forgiven -- no matter how bad your "sin" is.


IT SEEMS THAT political people think that whenever someone on their staff (or someone connected to them) screws up, all it takes is a dismissal; and then we're supposed to forget that the grievance ever occurred.


Instant forgiveness, it would seem.


Except for the political opponents of that person, who usually will go out of their way to keep that "sin" alive for as long as they wish -- whenever it serves their purposes.


This all popped into my head last week when 10th Ward Alderman John Pope let one of his aides go -- specifically, Thomas "T.J." Sadzak, who had worked for him since 2008 in terms of dealing with constituent complaints of 10th Ward residents.


BUT IT SEEMS that Sadzak had previously worked for the city's Streets and Sanitation department and had engaged in behavior so bad that he quit that job before he could be terminated -- and had actually been placed on a list of people whom are not eligible for city jobs. The city wound up having to pay nearly $99,000 to settle the resulting lawsuit filed by a fellow city worker.


But that list didn't apply to aldermanic staff hires, so Pope gave Sadzak a job -- one that he'd probably still have except for the Chicago Sun-Times reports of recent weeks that drew public attention to the whole situation.


That caused the alderman to let his staffer -- for whom to the best of my knowledge hadn't done anything as an aldermanic aide that would warrant his dismissal -- go.


As though all the criticism will now wither away. Actually, it probably will. Most people are short-memoried enough that they're not going to remember becoming public now by the time of the Feb. 24 municipal elections. I probably should point out here that in my reporter-type person duties, I have dealt with Sadzak and never had any problems with him.


ARE WE SUPPOSED to think that Pope's aldermanic challenger, Rich Martinez, is being petty every time he brings the issue up during coming months?


Which I suspect he will. As it turns out, Martinez came up with his first campaign attack on Friday calling for Pope to fire Sadzak, then resign himself -- all for showing "questionable" judgment in hiring the aide to begin with. That fact doesn't change, regardless of whether anyone lost a job now.


Martinez may still whine and cry in coming months that Pope didn't go far enough. Eventually, the voters will decide whether they think this issue -- along with many others -- is legitimate enough to warrant removal from the post he has held since 1999.


This issue won't die, no matter how much some people want it to, because some will  be determined to be petty enough to keep it alive.


WHAT THE CRITICS wanted was for the attack issue; not any real concern over whether the aide remained on the alderman's staff.


Not that such circumstances are unique. I still remember the 2008 election cycle when Barack Obama came under intense criticism because of his family pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and the rhetoric that to me sounds like what comes out of many a black-oriented church, but which "shocked and appalled" many white people who just weren't used to such over-the-top talk on Sunday.


Obama quickly cut ties to Wright -- the pastor who had presided over his wedding and established family ties. Not that the ideologues among us are willing to forget anything.


They want to complain, the way Pope's critics will still complain. The way many other political post terminations wind up being nothing more than sweeping a potential problem under the run -- rather than try to resolve the situations that led to the problem arising in the first place.


  -30-

White guys in the Latino caucus?

It always amused me that state Rep. Dan Burke, D-Chicago, went out of his way to include himself in the Illinois House’s Latino caucus – making a point of sitting in with other Latino state legislators whenever they would meet privately to derive their stance on certain issues.

Burke said he felt that since his legislative district on the Southwest Side had such a significant Latino population, it was his obligation to try to understand his constituents.

BECAUSE NOT COMPREHENDING them would be a sure-fire way toward having them turn on him and vote someone else into office.

Some people ridiculed his gesture as nothing more than a token effort to understand Latinos, and that just because he sat in on a few meetings did not make him suddenly aware of what his constituents were thinking.

But on the whole, I always saw his gesture as being more than most political people were willing to do – since the usual reaction of a political person representing an area with a growing Latino population is to somehow cling to the declining white population in the area and try to figure out ways to maximize its political power!

In short, political denial.

SO IT IS with a feeling of amusement that I will be observing the City Council in coming months, where the head of the council’s Latino caucus (25^th Ward Alderman Danny Solis) said this week that the caucus is now willing to include aldermen who represent neighborhoods with significant Latino populations.

Solis said he wants to increase the influence of Latino politicos, and figures that this is one way to boost the total numbers – which will go up after the 2015 municipal elections when new aldermen are elected under the new ward map that has 13 Latino-based wards and two more wards that are Latino-influenced.

Now whether that tactic will work is questionable. Because the real factor is whether the white aldermen will want to alter their view of the world to include their Latino constituents more thoroughly.

If they don’t want to, it won’t matter if Solis is able to include their names on his “list” of Latino-leaning aldermen. Latinos might not gain much from this move.

BUT I WILL say that if these aldermen have any sense whatsoever, they will reach out to their growing numbers of Latino constituents (29 percent of the city’s overall 2.7 million population is Latino, according to the 2010 census).

If they have any sense, they will accept this invitation as the least of gestures they can make to representing the people who live within their wards. They ought to be jumping at the chance to make this move. If they’re not willing to do so, then perhaps they deserve to get dumped come the ’15 election cycle.

So 14^th Ward Alderman Edward Burke (Dan’s brother) will get the chance to show some understanding, as will 10^th Ward Alderman John Pope (whose ward includes some of the oldest Spanish-speaking enclaves in Chicago and will now be 63 percent Latino).

Other aldermen who got un invitado include Marty Quinn (13^th Ward), Toni Foulkes (15^th Ward), Michael Zalewski (23^rd Ward), Nick Sposato (36^th Ward) and Richard Mell of the 33^rd Ward, who was in charge of the recently-completed redistricting effort for the Chicago City Council and whose daughter, Deb Mell, serves in the Latino Caucus in her role as a state representative from the Northwest Side.

SO WHILE CANDIDATES such as Pope have been successful at defeating Latino challengers (claiming he can appeal to Latino voters) and people like Sposato had approached the Latino Caucus leadership in the past about being included (only to be rebuffed), we’re going to get a better picture of how interested they are in the growing segment of their wards.

This is one case where a politician acting in their own self-interest would also be beneficial to the people of Chicago as a whole.

  -30-