3/29/23
Three major points on the upcoming Chicago mayoral
election:
THE TECHNOCRAT WILL PROBABLY BE CHICAGO’S NEXT MAYOR…
Many months ago, when this campaign started, yours truly
thought Paul Vallas had about a 0 (zero) chance of winning the big
office on the Fifth Floor. I thought
that Mr. Vallas would make a fine, or at least an acceptable, mayor, and I
suspect most people shared that assessment before the passions of this campaign
superseded rational analysis. However, I
also thought that Mr. Vallas’s clumsiness as a politician, abundantly displayed
in his former campaigns for governor and mayor and still present in this
campaign, would prevent him from ever assuming the chair of Richard J. Daley.
My prognostication regarding Mr. Vallas’s ability to be
elected was wrong, but not because Mr. Vallas suddenly acquired the campaigning
skills of, say, Bill Clinton.
Paul Vallas won because his hapless opponents left the tough on crime,
pro-police lane wide open for two candidates, Mr. Vallas and Willie Wilson. Given that public safety is THE issue in
this campaign, there is no way Mr. Vallas could have missed the run-off unless
Mr. Wilson made substantial inroads into Mr. Vallas’s base in the police and
fire wards. Mr. Wilson failed to do so;
hence, Mr. Vallas not only made the run-off but led the entire field, taking
nearly a third of the overall vote.
A cynic might say that Mr. Vallas won simply because he
was the only White candidate in a nine candidate field and, in always racially
charged Chicago, where the population is split among Whites, Blacks, and
Hispanics in roughly equal proportions, that is all he needed. Such an analysis, sadly, might be correct,
but yours truly would like to think that this over-simplification misses the
nuances of at least the White vote in this town and the overlapping interests
of members of those three racial groups. But that is grist for another mill.
It is likely, perhaps highly likely, that Mr. Vallas will
win next Tuesday’s run-off for a number of reasons:
·
Mr. Vallas’s opponent is the myopic and scantily
talented Brandon Johnson, whose message was once limited to his being
from a family of ten kids and Paul Vallas’s being some kind of gun toting
right-wing loon. As the campaign winds
down, Mr. Johnson is turning to arguing that Mr. Vallas talks down to him
because he is Black and that standardized testing is some kind of eugenicist
plot against the Black race. Such
tactics confirm the easily-acquired impression that Mr. Johnson is in way over
his head. I would not feel nearly as
good about Mr. Vallas’s chances were he facing Chuy Garcia or the bumbling,
yet still incumbent, Lori Lightfoot in the run-off.
·
Mr. Vallas will hold onto his rock solid support
in the police and fire wards and his less solid support in the JIFW (“Just
in from Winnetka”) wards on the near north side that he carried in the first
round election.
·
Mr. Vallas will get more support in the Black
community than is commonly thought.
Note that, while he did decently with Black voters in the first round, Mr.
Johnson did not carry any Black wards on the south and west sides; those wards
went to Mayor Lightfoot. Mr.
Vallas retains an at least modestly deep well of support among Black voters who
recall the Lazarus act he did with the public schools back in the ‘90s. Further, as the primary victims of Chicago’s
out of control crime problem, Blacks voters are probably more receptive to a
tough on crime, pro-police message than those who presume to speak for them
suppose. Finally, Mr. Vallas has
garnered the endorsements of some heavyweight Black politicians (See
below.)
·
Some commentators have declared that the
Hispanic vote will determine the election.
For reasons outlined above, yours truly doubts that the Hispanic vote
will be as crucial as these observers suppose.
However, if that vote turns out to be decisive, that should help Mr.
Vallas. While Mr. Garcia carried
most Hispanic wards, Mr. Vallas beat Mr. Johnson in every one of those wards,
and clobbered him in most of them. Hispanic
voters are at least as receptive to Mr. Vallas’s tough on crime message as
Black voters and are also at least as supportive of the type of school reform
Mr. Vallas espouses as are Black and White voters. Further, what is increasingly becoming Mr. Johnson’s
closing argument, i.e., that Paul Vallas is White while he is Black, is not all
that compelling in Hispanic wards.
·
The 10th Ward, tucked in the
southeast corner of the city bordering Indiana, is instructive. The ward is heavily Hispanic but remains an
ethnic microcosm of the city. As yours
truly has said on more than one occasion, the 10th has everything
but the JIFWs. Mr. Vallas, to yours
truly’s mild surprise, carried the 10th, squeaking by Mr. Garcia by
58 votes but, more relevant to the run-off, more than quadrupling Mr. Johnson’s
vote.
·
If you don’t agree with any of the above,
remember that Mr. Vallas beat Mr. Johnson by about 13% of the vote in
the first round. That is a high wall to
surmount, especially for one with the limited abilities of Mr. Johnson.
All that having been written, never overestimate the
intellectual or practical acuity of the typical voter in Chicago or in the
country at large. Mr. Johnson could
still pull this off because a disturbingly high percentage of our voters make its
decisions based on yard signs, 30-second commercials, and imagined yet
concocted affinity. But it sure looks
like the election is Mr. Vallas’s to lose.
…BUT IT PROBABLY WON’T MAKE MUCH DIFFERENCE
While Tony Cermak, Ed Kelly, Richard J. Daley, Richard M.
Daley, and Rahm Emanuel never got the proverbial memo, technically, the city of
Chicago has a weak mayor, strong council constitution. The aforementioned mayors made a mockery of
the city’s constitutional niceties, turning the City Council into a nearly 50
strong collection of marionettes dancing on a string. But now that the hapless Lori Lightfoot
has shown the Council what it can do with a weak mayor, the esteemed
alderpersons now smell blood and are determined to assert their authority over
the mayor. While the current thinly
veiled efforts of Ms. Lightfoot’s praetorian guard to entrench themselves under
the guise of reform will probably fail, the ongoing efforts of the Council to
show the current and next mayor who’s boss will continue. So, regardless of who wins on Tuesday, he is
not going to be even a pale shadow of the likes of Messrs. Daley or Mr.
Emanuel. He will have to do more than
listen; he will often find himself obeying.
Further, there are currently 18 members of the Council’s Progressive
Reform Caucus. Admittedly, some of
those alderpersons joined the Caucus because, in Chicago, it sounds good to
call one’s self “progressive,” but some are seriously “progressive.” Five of those 18 are self-declared Democratic
Socialists. The ranks of both of
those caucuses are likely to increase in the upcoming run-off elections.
Given the increasing power of the City Council vis-à-vis
the mayor and the Council’s increasingly leftist tilt, the election between Mr.
Johnson and Mr. Vallas could amount to a choice between the fast track or a
slow boat to political hell.
SPEAKING OF HELL, IT’S STARTING TO GET A LITTLE CHILLY
DOWN THERE
In supporting Paul Vallas, I am joined by the
following local politicians:
·
Congressman Danny Davis
·
Congressman Bobby Rush
·
Alderman Sophia King, chair of the City
Council’s Progressive Reform Caucus
·
Former Governor Pat Quinn (no relation)
·
Community organizer Ja’Mal Green
·
(most wondrous to say) Senator Dick Durbin
Yours truly has been a conservative since I was about fifteen. Now that the term “conservative” has become
more of a Rorschach blot than a description of a coherent philosophy of government or the conduct of one’s life, I’m
not quite sure what I am. But I am sure
that I do not share a philosophy of government with those listed above, who
would sooner be called something that would send the sainted Sister Monica
into a rage than be called a conservative.
Not to get all “We are the World”y on you, my loyal
readers, but maybe there is some hope here.
If I and (Saints preserve us!) Senator Dick Durbin can agree on a
mayoral candidate to support, maybe we can agree on other things. Perhaps the deep chasm that characterizes
politics and government in this country can be closed at least a little bit.
Probably not, but I just thought I’d throw it out there.
