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.
No comments:
Post a Comment