Rahm/Chuy could be intriguing political brawl, if we ever get to see it

Could it be that we’ll have a competitive election cycle next year for municipal government; with Rahm Emanuel facing a serious challenge from experienced politico Jesus “Chuy” Garcia to be the next mayor?


It’s possible – presuming that Garcia is able to avoid getting bogged down in the legalistic minutia that experienced political people like Emanuel can use to take down an opponent without actually having to campaign against them.

MONDAY WAS THE first day for people wishing to be on the ballot for the Feb. 27 elections to file their nominating petitions. Emanuel’s people were among those who filed in hopes of getting listed on the top ballot spot.

Garcia wasn’t there. His campaign is waiting until later in the week to file. Officially, they are saying they want to use every bit of time possible to make up for the fact that it was just a few weeks ago that Chuy said publicly he would run for office.

For all I know, Garcia may wind up waiting until the absolute deadline at the close of business on Nov. 24 before filing his petitions – in hopes of getting the absolute last spot on the ballot.

Electoral conventional wisdom contends that being listed first or last on a ballot is worth more votes than being lost in the middle of the list – on account of undecided voters merely picking one of those slots.

FOR AN ELECTION as high-profile as Chicago mayor, there probably won’t be many undecideds. So rushing for an early Monday filing to get the top slot isn’t as important.

But what will be intriguing will be how people react once Garcia does file his petitions. I already sense the feeling of a ballot challenge to try to claim that Garcia doesn’t qualify to run for mayor because he didn’t show enough voter support.

Get him kicked off the ballot, and it won’t matter how many people would like a chance to vote for him. As evidenced by a new poll commissioned by the Chicago Teachers Union (which officially has endorsed Garcia).

They contend that if it were merely a two-candidate race between Emanuel and Garcia, Rahm would take 36 percent with 31 percent for Chuy and another 30 percent undecided, as of now.

WITH SOME THREE months remaining between now and Election Day, that’s a lot of time to dig into that “undecided” vote.

Which is why it is likely that people supportive of Emanuel will go the ballot challenge route. Even if you are unable to kick him off, you can keep his campaign with its limited and yet-to-be raised funds bogged down in trying to justify its ballot spot – rather than seriously campaigning and reminding us of the reasons that many Chicagoans (62 percent have “unfavorable” views of him, according to the teachers union’s poll) wish they could dump Rahm from office.

Now I’m not saying that there really is anything wrong with the nominating petitions Garcia has yet to file. In fact, one Garcia supporter I spoke with stated it perfectly, in saying, “It will be Rahm being Rahm, being a tough guy with his money.”

As in the nearly $10 million he already has raised for his re-election campaign.

IT MIGHT BE peasant money compared to the nearly $100 million that got spent on the recently-completed gubernatorial election (with two-thirds of that on behalf of Gov.-elect Bruce Rauner).

Although it should be stated that Emanuel himself survived a serious ballot challenge in 2011. Could the desire to dump Rahm make it possible for Garcia to survive this year?

That might be where Garcia runs into real problems. Because even his supporters admit his recognition declines outside of the Pilsen and Little Village neighborhoods, along with the South Chicago and East Side communities that comprise the bulk of the city’s Mexican-oriented population.

Can Chuy make himself and his anti-establishment (as in anything connected to the name “Daley”) political background known even if his very existence on the ballot is being challenged?

WILL THE REST of Chicago take to Garcia? Or will the anti-Emanuel vote wind up getting split between 2^nd Ward Alderman Robert Fioretti, former alderman Robert Shaw and the others (including one token Republican) who are likely to file nominating petitions?

That will be the key question in determining whether Emanuel’s political fantasy will come true!

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Byrne gains glory after she’s gone

If ever there was a case of somebody having to wait until after death to gain praise for what they achieved during life, it is that of former Mayor Jane Byrne.
         

The first, and thus far only, woman to get elected as chief executive of Chicago city government died Friday at age 81 – some 31 years after she lost her re-election bid to Harold Washington.

MUCH HAS BEEN made about the fact that any kind of official recognition for Byrne didn’t come until this year, when the Circle Interchange was officially renamed in her honor. I found it amusing to read in the newspapers this weekend that Byrne’s daughter, Kathy, said Jane used to get a kick out of listening to radio traffic reports telling of rush-hour traffic “backed up at the Byrne,” so to speak.

But let’s be honest. She could easily have passed with relative anonymity, and her funeral service to be held Monday could have wound up a low-key affair that nobody paid attention to.

Is it really the desire of the Daley family to downplay anything involving city government that they can’t take credit for? Or are we Chicagoans just so short-memoried when it comes to our public personas?

Of course, Byrne used to get so much criticism from all factions in Chicago while she was mayor that it probably has taken the passage of so much time before people could think pleasant thoughts about her.

SOMETHING TO KEEP in mind when one keeps hearing over and over about the low approval ratings for President Barack Obama or soon-to-be former Gov. Pat Quinn.

But back to Byrne, who included amongst her achievements during her four years as mayor a stint living in the now-demolished Cabrini-Green public housing complex.

Her time living there stretched anywhere from one to three weeks – and was a response to a rising level of gang-related violence at the complex. It gained attention because the complex was so close to the Gold Coast neighborhood and Near North Side that Chicago likes to think of as being amongst its jewels.

Byrne herself said she was amazed she could look out her Cabrini apartment window and see her high-rise condo and Holy Name Cathedral, yet feel so isolated at the same time.

BYRNE CLAIMED SHE wanted to offer Cabrini-Green residents hope and a sense that the outside world cared about their predicament.

But I also have known many black people who viewed Byrne’s stint as a stunt and they say that she and husband Jay McMullen never really “lived” there – even though in her book “My Chicago,” she recounts a tale of her husband frightening security when he tried to cook dinner in a Cabrini kitchen; only to trigger the fire alarms.

Personally, I’m shocked to learn the complex’ fire alarms worked. But that’s another tale.

Many of the obituaries I have read recall how she “beat” the Machine – only to make deals with the “Evil Cabal” of aldermen including the Eddies; Burke of the 14^th Ward and former 10^th Ward boss Vrdolyak.

ANYBODY WHO THOUGHT she was friendly with either doesn’t understand the nature of political people – who tend to be envious of each other when the cameras aren’t running.

I recall a moment from my City News Bureau days when, on primary Election Day in 1988, I had to go see Vrdolyak vote. He was already past what turned out to be his glory days, but had hopes he could stage a political comeback by being the Republican candidate for Cook County court clerk.

It was a possibility that Vrdolyak could wind up running against Byrne herself, and “Fast Eddie” arrogantly said he wanted to run against her instead of Aurelia Pucinski because he thought Jane would do something self-destructive. “It’ll be more fun that way,” he said of the former mayor.

Not exactly the feelings of a friend.

ALTHOUGH I ALSO recall a moment talking to a Chicago cop who didn’t think much of the mayor. But when he tried to come up with the line that summarized her, he said, “she’s ugly, but she’s tough.”

Somehow, I suspect Byrne herself would have taken that line as the ultimate compliment.

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When it comes to govt. shutdown, some (political) people just never learn

The new Republican majority that will control Congress is already plotting its retaliation should President Barack Obama proceed with plans to use his ‘executive order’ powers to push through portions of immigration reform.

Republican congressional leaders are going about saying they would consider government shutdowns if Obama were to proceed with what they want to describe as an illegal/immoral act.

AS IN GOVERNMENT agencies would be shuttered. No services would be performed. Those in the public who depend heavily on such services would suffer.

And the public would place the blame on Obama for their losses. Actually, if history is any indication, no they won’t!

They sure didn’t back in the mid-1990s when then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich thought his “Contract with America” type of ideologues could bully then-President Bill Clinton into going along with their wishes.

Gingrich & Co. wound up having to back down when the public saw the tactic as cheap politicking by the Republicans that put the people at risk.

WHENEVER REPUBLICANS HAVE threatened Obama’s presidency with a government shutdown, the public has taken the same attitude. In short, Republican officials are the types who are willing to harm what the public needs in order to try to get their way.

I’m convinced the same thing will happen if the GOP tries another government shutdown. If anything, it would help reinforce Obama’s standing with Latino voters – who admittedly are less-than-enthused about the president these days.

Obama has refused to use his influence to push for serious immigration reform; in large part because he has feared antagonizing the conservative ideologues on other issues. The problem with his concern is that those ideologues already are fully stirred-up about Obama, and aren’t going to do anything to help him no matter what he does.

Latino activists who have a special interest in immigration reform realize it is those ideologues who are the real problem. But they see Obama as being too weak to stand up to them and back the promises he made on the issue in past campaigns.

SO PEOPLE ARE waiting to see if Obama keeps his most recent promises – that he would pass some sort of order that implemented partial immigration reforms. The Washington Post has reported recently it might be an order that prevents non-citizens from being deported IF their children are U.S. citizens.

Action could come before year’s end. Although the GOP officials are making it clear they don’t want Obama to do anything on the issue.

I don’t doubt they will get petty in their retaliation. Immigration reform truly is the issue that brings out the worst in these ideologues – particularly since so many of their hang-ups are racially- and ethnically-motivated.

It’s too bad these ideologues don’t realize how much they’d be doing themselves harm politically by taking such actions. All those Latinos who now are wondering if an Obama vote was a mistake would be reminded why they voted against the Republican presidential candidates in the first place – and why they ought to do so again come 2016.

CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS reported this week how Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., is being urged by some Latino activists to consider a presidential run himself because of this issue.

Some are comparing such a potential bid to the one that the Rev. Jesse Jackson made back in 1984 – he didn’t come close to winning, but did draw attention to political concerns of the African-American electorate.

Although I think one has to go back another two decades to see the likely outcome for immigration reform.

It ties back to the presidency of John F. Kennedy, who was sympathetic to the civil rights movement but was unwilling to fully back it out of fear of antagonizing those southern political people who were Democrats and expected federal government to support the segregationist way of life that existed then.

IT ULTIMATELY TOOK the hard-core political skills of Kennedy’s successor – Lyndon B. Johnson – to get enough votes in Congress to overcome the segregationist segment and push the Civil Rights Act into law.

There are those who think Obama inspired us to want to do better as a society, similar to the days of Kennedy.

Does this mean that the way to finally resolve the issue of eliminating the bureaucratic mess that is our current national immigration policy is not to follow the lead of Newt, but instead to find ourselves the next LBJ?!?

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Could Lucas museum be Chicago lakefront’s ultimate defilement?

There is a certain generation of Chicagoans who believe the McCormick Place convention center is a monstrosity that permanently defiled the beauty of the city’s portion of the Lake Michigan shoreline.

It’s big. It’s bulky. It got built in so many pieces throughout the years that there isn’t an architectural consistency to the entire complex.

IT CERTAINLY CLASHES with the Burnham plan of the early 20^th Century that was supposed to encourage urban development in Chicago that would not interfere with the natural beauty of being a city right on the Great Lakes.

But it got done, and we have to live with it. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m of a generation that thinks in terms of McCormick Place having always just “been there.” It doesn’t make me ill because it just seems hard to envision the site open to anything else.

Which apparently is what those who prepared the preliminary design for that George Lucas museum that may someday be built in Chicago are thinking about.

When I saw the sketches of what that structure will supposedly look like (with the downtown skyline in the distance and the futuristic-like Soldier Field within sight), I couldn’t help but think the structure looks ridiculous.

TOTALLY OUT OF place. As in no way that thing should ever be built on that site, or any site along the lakefront. As in perhaps I’m sympathetic to the lawsuit filed Thursday by the Friends of the Parks organization in U.S. District Court to stop development of the project.

But perhaps future generations will just sort of accept that it’s there, and not give it any thought before they check out the assorted artifacts that will wind up on display in such a museum.

My own thoughts about the sketches I saw was that the structure looked like a giant pile of sand along the lakeshore, with some sort of ring casually placed on top. Giant, as in seven stories high – with that ring being an observation deck where people can check out Chicago from up high, like they already do by traveling up to the 103^rd floor of the Sears Tower (forget that Willis nonsense, I’d sooner call it the “Arnold” building).

Almost as though a giant baby was using our public beach as his personal sandbox and built sand “castles” that were nothing more than the content of a bucket turned upside down.

YOU HUMOR THE youngster for making a nice pile, but it’s not anything permanently lasting. So why should we think this design that would defile the lakefront’s appearance is worth any praise?

Now I know that Lucas has knocked down the public impression that this is a museum devoted to his “Star Wars” films – saying it will be much more about pop culture throughout our society.

Yet it almost looks like somebody’s reject of a Star Wars set – and I’m not alone in thinking that. Both 42^nd Ward Alderman Brendan Reilly and 2^nd Ward Alderman Robert Fioretti made similar comments.

With the would-be mayoral dreamer Fioretti saying it looked to him like the Jabba the Hut character’s palace. Does this mean we’ll have a Carrie Fisher lookalike walking around in that skimpy gold-bikini-like outfit worn in “Return of the Jedi?”

I’M NOT BOTHERED by the idea of some sort of Lucas-inspired museum being in Chicago. I just would like to see a bit more inspiration put into its design. Or else this would literally be nothing more than the gap-filler in a stretch of tackiness started by the current incarnation of Soldier Field stretching down to McCormick Place.

Although perhaps we should feel lucky that one of the most absurd ideas for a lakefront development never got done – that dream of then-Mayor Richard J. Daley in the 1960s for a multi-purpose sports stadium to be built on a man-made island IN Lake Michigan proper.

It may have looked inspired on a drawing board.

But just think of how much frustration Chicago White Sox and Cubs fans, along with Bears fanatics, would have felt trying to navigate to such a structure on game days. Then getting caught in a ridiculous traffic jam after watching our city’s typically pathetic ball clubs lose yet again!

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EXTRA: When do we get the Rahm/Rauner sit down/shouting match?

It seems that Gov.-elect Bruce Rauner had the one-on-one meeting Thursday morning with the Democratic leadership of the General Assembly.

No word on any specific policies being ironed out – or whether Rauner was able to convince the state Legislature to go along with his wishes and do as little as possible during the remaining weeks of the Gov. Pat Quinn administration.

BUT IT IS good to know that Rauner was able to be in a room with Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan and his state Senate cohort, John Cullerton, without any solid objects being flung through the air in the direction of somebody’s head.

It certainly was a more significant gathering than the conversation that occurred earlier this week between Rauner and Quinn.

Although the meeting that we probably need to have occur to give us a sense of what direction our government officials are headed in future years is the one between Rauner and Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

The two are alleged to be friendly with each other. But it will be intriguing to see whether their respective egos and desires to be all-powerful will manage to interfere with friendship.

WILL THESE TWO men wind up being able to work together to get things done for the public good?

Will Emanuel get answers to his questions about what exactly Rauner means when he says he only wants a minimum wage hike paired up with certain business reforms that make some people think of “right to work” states and their anti-organized labor policies?

Or are we destined for a repeat of the old Richard M. Daley/Jim Edgar days when the two men often squabbled over which of the two was the more significant public official?

That would be the ultimate kick in the pants to the people who thought a vote for Rauner somehow meant significant change in the way government operates!

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Political peace? Or cheap talk?

It seems that Gov. Pat Quinn picked up the telephone on Wednesday to place a call to Gov.-elect Bruce Rauner. The two have finally spoke!

Not that I’m sure anything of significance was said. Or that the call was all that essential – unless you’re one of those who needs the mental picture of Quinn being vanquished, kneeling before his new master!

WHICH, WITH ALL the problems state government faces, strikes me as being a very petty concern.

But the two have talked, at least for a few minutes. According to both the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune.

The latter indicates the two men talked about the Affordable Care Act, while the Sun-Times indicates that Rauner aides characterized the conversation as “cordial.’

Don’t we all feel enlightened now?!?

I AM AWARE of the fact that some people felt like Quinn snubbed Rauner when he refused to make a concession statement publicly on Election Night. Although I always like the idea of a political person who keeps his mouth shut, rather than blathering on with a lot of verbal nonsense.

Rauner appears to have won the gubernatorial election with a solid margin (we won’t officially know until Dec. 9, but it would be a miracle if enough votes turn up to overcome the unofficial totals we learned last week).

Which means his staff is now in transition mode, trying to move from becoming the people who spout out a lot of cheap talk about Quinn to being the people who actually have to come up with solutions to the state’s problems – then try to figure out how to implement them despite having an executive branch of the opposition political party.

And one that would be inclined to be hostile toward anything Rauner might want to do.

THERE WAS THAT whole debacle where Rauner tried to give the impression on Nov. 4 that he reached out to the General Assembly’s leaders to talk about the future. When all he really did was have his aides try to make cell phone calls to aides of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan and state Senate President John Cullerton, both D-Chicago.

That also would have been a case where a political person would have been better off keeping his mouth shut. Rauner could have made an equally-boastful victory speech without mentioning either Madigan, Cullerton or the legislative process.

I’d have to say he brought whatever ridicule he has received in recent days upon himself.

But back to the latest call – the one between the two “leaders.” If there’s anything that Quinn should do in coming weeks before he leaves office in early January, it’s probably nothing.

AS IN HE should try to stay out of the way – just as if he were an incoming governor who would not want someone else trying to impose remnants of their will upon his desires.

There is a certain amount of cooperation that should occur between the respective staffs of Quinn and Rauner so that the people who actually do the work of government know the basics of procedure and routine.

Although somehow I suspect Rauner is going to be the type who’s going to go about claiming he doesn’t care about the way things are done, because he wants them done his way.

Which would be the way a CEO would behave in overseeing a business interest.

BUT SINCE GOVERNMENT is not a business, there will be a certain amount of oversight. Which will come from Madigan, with assistance from Cullerton. People wishing to prevent Rauner from overstepping boundaries ought to expect those two to keep the new governor in check, rather than thinking Quinn has much more to say.

Because it will be up to Madigan and Cullerton who will decide if there are any “final actions” (ie., a minimum wage hike?, etc.) to take place when the soon-to-be former General Assembly has its final veto session later this month, and its final days of existence in early January.

 Cheap talk now merely complicates things later, when they really matter.

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It only takes one to win

I recall an Election Night back when I was at the old City News Bureau when one of my brand-new colleagues was confused about the vote-counting process – she didn’t get why there were still votes being counted on a Wednesday afternoon.

Me being the “old pro” (I think it was my second election cycle I covered), I knew about the assorted ballots that don’t actually get counted until days after Election Day.

ALTHOUGH THE VOTES that do get counted usually offer up a clear-enough picture of “Who won?!?” that nobody really cares about the exact total.

It takes an election cycle like the one currently taking place for Illinois treasurer to remind us that there’s a reason it matters that the official vote certification doesn’t take place until December (as in the 8^th, when the Illinois State Board of Elections will give us the final totals that will be recorded for political geek posterity).

For it has been just over a week since Election Day, and we don’t know yet who our new state treasurer is (although Republican Tom Cross has said he thinks it will be him, while Democrat Michael Frerichs says he’s not giving up).

I have noticed the Capitol Fax newsletter out of Springfield has put on its website a gadget that tries to give us the up-to-the-minute vote total. Although the fact that rural counties are doing nothing to update their total until the last possible minute means we really don’t know who won.

AS OF MID-DAY Tuesday, Cross allegedly had 1,671,018 votes to 1,670,526 votes for Frerichs. There also were 144,614 votes for Libertarian candidate Matthew Skopek.

When turned into the percentages that most people seem to prefer to think of, Cross has 47.93 percent of the vote to Frerichs’ 47.92 percent – with just over 4 percent for Skopek.

Considering that vote-by-mail ballots will stop being accepted on next week Tuesday, there are the prayers that an overwhelming Cook County vote (9,000 provisional ballots that have to be determined whether or not they are legitimate and count for anything) could somehow push Frerichs over the top.

Although there are others who think the fact that 101 rural counties went for Republican gubernatorial nominee Bruce Rauner means they could also provide just enough additional votes to withstand any gains made by Frerichs – who as a Champaign resident wasn’t exactly someone Chicago voters were going to take up the cause of as a political crusade.

IF CROSS, WHO supposedly was the favorite because of his name recognition – although I doubt most real people have any clue who the legislative leaders are, with the exception of Michael Madigan – winds up winning, it would be something of a gain for Republicans.

I have heard some political operatives go on and on about how this is now a Republican-leaning state government because four of the six state constitutional officers would be of the GOP persuasion (nobody voted for Lt. Gov.-elect Evelyn Sanguineti specifically, but she counts as an individual).

Which is probably the reason why Democratic political operatives would like to win the post. It would make this the election cycle in which the political parties traded posts, rather than lost anything.

Although I don’t know anyone who’d trade “governor” for “treasurer.”

I’M NOT ABOUT to predict how close this one will wind up – although I realize that it only takes a one-vote margin to win the post for the next four years.

Perhaps we’re on our way to an Illinois version of that 1948 election for the Senate from Texas – where Lyndon Johnson got his victory by 87 votes.

“Landslide Lyndon” has more of a ring to it than any kind of nickname that would get tagged to either Cross or Frerichs. Although I’m sure either one would eagerly take a lead – no matter how slim it appears to the public.

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