4/5/23
Yours truly was surprised (See 3/29/23’s THE
CHICAGO MAYOR’S RACE: IT SURE LOOKS
LIKE VALLAS), but not shocked by Paul Vallas’s dismal failure to win the race
for Chicago mayor that seemed to be his to lose. But perhaps there are few grounds for
surprise.
Why did Mr. Vallas lose?
Vote wise, the reasons leap out at the reader:
·
Brandon Johnson clobbered Paul Vallas in the Black
wards. Mr. Johnson got 80% of the vote
in nine Black wards. In the rest, he was
in the 60s and 70s. Mr. Vallas’s
efforts to reach out to Black voters, and his historical strength in those
wards, counted for nothing. Nobody
expected Mr. Vallas to carry any of these wards, but many observers, including
yours truly, expected him to do better than a convincing imitation of a man being
flattened by a steamroller.
·
Turnout overall was down a bit from the dismal
turnout in the first round election. However,
turnout among young voters was up slightly while turnout among older voters was
down slightly. The biggest increase in
turnout was among voters aged 25-34, but all groups aged 54 and younger showed
larger turnout. The biggest decrease was
among voters aged 75+, which may have been due to the miserable weather on
election day, but all groups aged 55 and older showed decreases in turnout. Mr. Vallas’s greatest strength was among
older voters.
·
Mr. Johnson did very well in Hispanic wards, coming
at least close in all of them and carrying a few with 60% or more of the
vote. This surprised yours truly more
than anything else that transpired yesterday.
·
Mr. Vallas lost some serious ground in the JIFW
(“Just in from Winnetka”) wards on the near north lake front. Not to get too far into the woods here, but…
§ In
the 42nd ward, Mr. Vallas went from beating Mr. Johnson by a factor
of 5 to defeating him by a factor of 3.
§ In
the 43rd Ward, Mr. Vallas beat Mr. Johnson by a factor of 3 in the
preliminary but only doubled his vote in the run-off.
§ Mr.
Vallas beat Mr. Johnson by 30% in the 44th Ward in the preliminary
but lost the 44th by about 100 votes in the final. Incidentally, yours truly knew Mr. Vallas had
lost when retiring Alderman Tom Tunney of the 44th looked really
nervous during an interview and admitted, even before the votes were all in,
that he didn’t do as well for Mr. Vallas as he had in the preliminary.
Those are the numbers, but why did they turn out that way?
First, people voted their race. This is sad but not surprising in a country
dominated by pols on both sides of the ideological divide who see great benefit
in reinforcing identity politics. The
world has changed a lot from the ‘90s and ‘00s, when Richard M. Daley routinely
carried large portions of the Black vote, against rather formidable Black
opponents like Gene Sawyer, Danny Davis, Gene Pincham, Roland Burris, Bobby
Rush, and Dorothy Brown in his bids to first win and then retain his perch on
the 5th Floor, or even 1987, when Harold Washington carried a sufficient
number of White votes to dispatch first Ed Vrdolyak and then Jane Byrne to
coast, more or less, to re-election.
But things have changed in a world in which politicians see more
personal benefit in dividing us than in uniting us and the, er, inattentive electorate laps up the bait.
Second, even the most ridiculous charges against Mr.
Vallas stuck. The most salient of these
was that, as a member of the Greek Orthodox Church, Paul Vallas is anti-abortion
and anti-LGBTQ rights. To see the silliness
of that charge, replace “Greek Orthodox” with “Catholic” and then replace “Paul
Vallas” with “Nancy Pelosi” or “Joe Biden.”
Yet these charges seemed to give Mr. Johnson a boost, especially in the
JIFW wards.
There was also the silly charge that Mr. Vallas is really
a Republican. Yours truly, who is a
member of neither party but who generally votes Republican, will doubtless be
joined by numerous card-carrying GOPers in saying that we don’t want him, you
can have him, the shameless panderer is too liberal for me. Among
Republicans, Mr. Vallas was simply the lesser of two evils.
Even the post-mortem charges against Mr. Vallas by members
of the commentariat seem to have stuck.
The these is the canard that Mr. Vallas did nothing between the preliminary
and the run-off elections to expand his base.
In reality, Mr. Vallas did little
but try to attract Black and Hispanic votes in the crucial month between the two
elections. How many White churches did
Paul Vallas visit on the Sunday before the election?
Will the outcome be good for Chicago? No.
Mr. Johnson is anti-business, anti-police, anti-taxpayer, and anti-anybody
he can net a vote or two by being against.
The analogy to Harold Washington’s 1983 victory rings hollow. The opposition to Mr. Washington from within
his own party arose from race and, at least equally but not as saliently, from concern
regarding the division of political spoils .
Mr. Washington, as a Congressman, a former state legislator, and, as
Ralph Metcalf’s protege, a guy who had been around politics, both inside and
outside the Machine, was clearly as qualified to be mayor as either of his
opponents. Mr. Washington didn’t go
around arguing that standardized tests have “roots in eugenics to prove the inferiority
of Black people,” as Brandon Johnson did in the March 21 debate. Certainly Mr. Washington, a veritable
wordsmith who was the most articulate mayor in Chicago’s history (the latter an
admittedly low bar) would never be caught dead saying anything like “I was
polling at 2.3% in October. No one had
thought I had a chance. Yet here I be.” (Emphasis mine), as Mr. Johnson said in the
March 28 debate.
While Mr. Vallas was no prize, Mr. Johnson gives every indication
that he will be a disaster for the city of Chicago. I hope that we will not soon be yearning and
pining for the days of Lori Lightfoot. But
I suspect we might.
No comments:
Post a Comment