RAHM EMANUEL WILL NOT RUN AGAIN? YOU CAN’T BE SERIOUS. CAN YOU?

5/29/18

The Memorial Day weekend’s Chicago papers were peppered with reports that there is talk among the cognoscenti that Mayor Rahm Emanuel may decide not to run for a third term.   Yours truly’s first impulse was to dismiss such speculation out of hand; surely, Mr. Emanuel, a glutton for power and, apparently, for punishment, will seek a third time.   However, one doesn’t learn much by immediately dismissing contrary ideas, so I took some time to ruminate on the idea of Mr. Emanuel’s bowing out.   It turns out that if one performs sufficient contortions, one could conceivably come up with a nearly credible case for Mr. Emanuel’s saying au revoir to this latest adventure in a career characterized by a continuing concupiscence for power and fame.

If Mr. Emanuel were to bow out now, he could argue, however implausibly, that he has turned around Chicago.   He could contend that he has straightened out the city’s finances, putting it on the path to fiscal rectitude.  He could aver that his wise tutelage has resulted in the city’s crime problem starting to abate.   He could further argue that, due to his attractiveness to the movers and shakers of corporate America, more companies are relocating to Chicago, bringing jobs, tax revenues, and prestige to what one suspects Mr. Emanuel considered a backwater before his arrival on the scene.   In short, Mr. Emanuel can argue that his mission to bring enlightenment and wisdom to his home town has been accomplished.   Therefore, it is time to, of course, spend more time with his family.   After an ever so brief hiatus, perhaps measured in days, from politics, he can then resume his pursuit of his real goal, i.e., power at the national level, perhaps beginning with a spot on the 2020 Democratic ticket.

Before one laughs at such a contention, consider that there is an element of truth to each of these arguments.   Chicago’s financial condition is indeed better than that which prevailed when Mr. Emanuel deigned to return to govern the town in which he was born.   Considering that the city was headed to financial hell on the express train in 2011, this might not appear to be such a titanic accomplishment, but at least the city is now on only the milk run to de facto, or maybe even de jure, bankruptcy.   Further, while crime is still a huge problem, the morale of the police department is on at least a post-Summerdale scandal low, and Chicago looks like something of a shooting gallery compared to New York and L.A., reported crime is down in 2018 on a year-over-year basis.   Finally, some big companies have relocated here, including such iconic American companies as McDonald’s.   And, as unlikely as it might be, there is still a chance that Amazon will relocate its second campus here.  That would be an enormous feather in the cap of a departing mayor trying to portray himself as a modern-day Pericles.

More importantly, Mr. Emanuel has access to perhaps the greatest spin wizards in politics and Hollywood.   They could take the thin gruel of the Mayor’s accomplishments and whip it into a hearty stew of a tale of a conquering hero, a guy who came, saw, and conquered.   The truth may be exaggerated, the story might strain credulity, but the story only has to be good enough to convince a largely apathetic and low information voter base that Mr. Emanuel, who untied the Gordian knot that was post-Richard II Chicago, is the man, perhaps the only man, with the superpowers necessary to address the woes of a post-Trump America.  Given the people the Mayor, his minions, and his brother can access, this shouldn’t be that tall of an order to fill.

Further, consider that the admittedly tall tale of Rahm the Conqueror will only get more difficult to tell four or eight years from now.   The day of reckoning for Chicago has only been delayed, largely, at least on the financial end, due to the admirable efforts of Mr. Emanuel and his courage to make the tough political decisions his predecessor refused to make.   But the day of reckoning has only been delayed.  Say what you will about Mr. Emanuel, but he is not stupid.  He can see that things are only going to get worse in the city of Chicago.   Perhaps he sees the wisdom of leaving now when he is as close to the top as he is going to get regarding the stewardship of what he calls his home town.   Right now, he and his PR people can spin this story to be a lot better than it really is; after a few years, even all of Rahm’s horses and all of Rahm’s men might not be able to put the story of Rahm’s saving Chicago back together again.

So, upon reflection, it might make sense for Mr. Emanuel, who always has his eye on the next prize, to get out of town, take credit for what he has accomplished and for what he can convince people he has accomplished, let his successor take the blame for the city’s nearly inevitable demise, and then argue, presumably with a straight face, that the city would still be prospering had he not elected to step down from the job he loved.   Does yours truly think this is what will happen?   No.  I still think the Mayor will run again and, at least at this juncture, that he will win a third term; you can’t beat somebody with nobody, especially when somebody has access to the spondulicks and the talent necessary to spin whatever tale he would like to spin.  However, after long and serious thought about the issue, I would be surprised, but not shocked, were Mr. Emanuel to suddenly be seized with a suddenly irresistible impulse to spend more time with his family.

And what about that spot on the 2020 ticket?   That is grist for a later post.

See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for further illumination on how things work in Chicago and Illinois politics. 

RAHM EMANUEL TO GOD: PLEASE, LORD, IF I HAVE TO GO TO A RUN-OFF, LET IT BE AGAINST RICHARD M. DALEY, ER, SORRY…PAUL VALLAS

5/25/18

The Chicago Tribune didn’t run this letter, but it should have.  Given that Paul Vallas can be, however loosely or tightly, identified with the fiscal fiasco that was the Richard M. Daley administration, Rahm Emanuel has to be salivating at the prospect of running against Mr. Vallas in the run-off.   

One could legitimately argue that Mr. Vallas was a prominent member of the Richard II administration during its early “good” years and was long gone by the time Mr. Daley became the best living argument for term limits in the history of this great country.  But what we are considering here is a political campaign in the city of Chicago, not a political debate in the faculty lounges of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

4/29/18

John Kass is clearly wrong when he contends “What Emanuel doesn’t want:  Vallas in a runoff,” (Tribune, 4/28/19, page 2).    Rahm Emanuel would like nothing more than a one-on-one match with Paul Vallas in which the Mayor and his minions will skewer the former Chicago revenue and budget director, handpicked by Mr. Daley, as the architect of the disastrous fiscal mismanagement of the Daley administration.   Mr. Vallas, rightly or wrongly, will be portrayed as the guy who dug the fiscal cavern from which Mr. Emanuel is valiantly trying to extricate the citizens of Chicago.  Does Mr. Kass think that the timing of the Mayor’s criticism of his predecessor going from tacit to explicit is a coincidence?  The Mayor’s appearance on WLS on April 29, in which Mr. Emanuel came closer than ever to criticizing Mr. Daley by name, is only the beginning of a campaign that will attempt to exonerate Mr. Emanuel for his long line of tax increases by placing the blame squarely on Richard M. Daley and, by extension, Paul Vallas.   And don’t think for a minute that the mayor’s operatives won’t blame Mr. Vallas, Mr. Daley’s school CEO, for the problems of the city’s public schools.  

If Mr. Vallas emerges from the primary scrum to face Mr. Emanuel in the run-off, Mr. Emanuel will make sure that this becomes an Emanuel vs. Daley race.   Given the fiscal train wreck Mr. Daley left the citizens of Chicago, what easier opponent could Mr. Emanuel have?

Mark Quinn

See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for further illumination on how things work in Chicago and Illinois politics. 

DIVERSITY ON SUCH TRIVIALITIES AS IDEAS APPARENTLY DOESN’T COUNT IN OUR BRAVE NEW SOCIETY

5/25/18

I sent the following letter to the Chicago Sun-Times on 5/14/18 in response to an article on yet another quixotic attempt at campaign reform.  The paper published the letter a few days later, i.e., on 5/17/18.   My motivation for sending the letter was not so much making a point on finance reform as my increasing bemusement of the definition of diversity that seems to exclude diversity of ideas and/or thought in favor of defining diversity exclusively in terms of race, gender, ethnicity, age, etc. 

5/14/18

Cook County Clerk David Orr says Illinois’ campaign finance system squeezes out competing ideas.  Unnamed critics of the system says it discourages diversity.  (“Will big-bucks race spur change?”, 5/14/18, page 8)

Given the radically different competing ideas Governor Rauner and J.B. Pritzker have on the origins of and solutions to our state’s problems, Mr. Orr’s contention is laughable.   Given the diversity of the plans of the two gubernatorial nominees, the critics’ contention that diversity is being discouraged by the current campaign finance system is tenable only if one’s definition of “diversity” does not extend beyond skin color or gender to encompass such apparently trivial dimensions as ideas, thought, and opinions.

There may be problems with our campaign finance system, but given the radically different ideas embodied by Bruce Rauner and J.B. Pritzker, discouragement of “competing ideas” and squeezing out of “diversity,” at least of thought, are not two of them.

Mark M. Quinn

See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for further illumination on how things work in Chicago and Illinois politics. 

KELLY CASSIDY MIGHT WANT TO PROVIDE A MORE LOGICAL EXPLANATION OF WHY SHE NO LONGER WORKS IN THE COOK COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE…AND WHY SHE WORKED THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE.

5/23/18

A little common sense should be brought to the discussion regarding State Representative Kelly Cassidy’s charges that she was forced out of her part-time job with the Cook County Sheriff’s office in retaliation for her criticizing Speaker Mike Madigan’s handling of sexual harassment complaints against Kevin Quinn (no relation), a long time Madigan political aide.

First, Representative Cassidy was not fired from her position at the Sheriff’s office; she resigned.   She seems to be arguing that she was pressured to resign by a call from the Speaker’s chief of staff, Tim Mapes, to the Sheriff’s department inquiring about her employment status there.   But Representative Cassidy has been around Chicago politics a long time and presumably is tough enough not to let a mere employment inquiry, even from someone of Mr. Mapes’ stature, intimidate her into resigning.

Second, the Sheriff’s office contends that Representative Cassidy resigned because she opposed a bill that Sheriff Tom Dart was pushing, a bill that would place inmates who engage in sexually predatory behavior in prison on the sex offender registry upon release.   That would certainly seem to be the more direct and relevant cause for Representative Cassidy’s resignation than presumed pressure from the Speaker on an unrelated issued. Representative Cassidy even cites as evidence of pressure from Speaker Madigan a call from Madigan protégé Representative Bob Rita inquiring as to how she could oppose the sex offender registry bill that was supported by her “boss,” Sheriff Tom Dart.   That call from Representative Rita lends credence to the logical argument that, to the extent there was pressure on her to resign, the pressure arose from her opposition to the sex offender registry bill, not from her calling out Speaker Madigan on his handling of complaints against Mr. Quinn.

Third, one has to ask what Representative Cassidy’s part-time job at the Sheriff’s office involved.   If it was, as some of Representative Cassidy’s defenders argue, used as political leverage, the job was part of the old way of doing things in Chicago politics, a brand of politics that Rep. Cassidy purports to abhor.   If she understandably doesn’t like the old school brand of Chicago politics she seems to be accusing Sheriff Dart and Speaker Madigan of practicing, why did she take the job in the first place?

It would seem to the disinterested observer that the burden of proof in this case lies with Representative Cassidy.  While she argues that she was pressured out of her job with the Sheriff because of her criticism of Speaker Madigan in the Kevin Quinn affair, it seems more logical to conclude that the story is just what the Sheriff’s office says it is:   Representative Cassidy quit because she found reprehensible the Sheriff’s efforts to battle sexually predatory conduct on the part of inmates against female staffers.  One can understand why Representative Cassidy would want to deflect attention from her stance on this issue and instead paint her actions as a noble manifestation of her dedication to the #MeToo movement.  Also, it would seem that if the part time job with the Sheriff’s office was just a form of political pressure to keep Representative Cassidy voting the “right” way, she, and those who gave her the job, including Sheriff Dart and perhaps Speaker Madigan, have a lot of explaining to do.  

See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for further illumination on how things work in Chicago and Illinois politics.