Posted on 02/26/2023 1:04:33 PM PST by Libloather
CHICAGO - No one has a clear opening to win the Chicago mayor’s race this week - not even the person who won the job just four years ago.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot, a Democrat, faces eight challengers in Tuesday’s contest and neither money, advertising nor polling are clear indicators of the outcome in a race almost entirely about crime.
The only thing that seems certain among political insiders, alderpeople, members of the congressional delegation, pollsters and the mayor herself, is that Lightfoot won’t crack the 50 percent needed to avoid a two-person runoff on April 4.
“I’m very confident that we will be in a runoff, but we can’t take anything for chance,” Lightfoot said in an interview Thursday after breakfast with Black business leaders at Daley’s Restaurant, one of the city’s oldest (and not related to the former mayors). “We’ve got to get people out to the polls.”
The mayor was a little-known former prosecutor four years ago when she emerged as the top vote-getter on Election Day 2019, sailing past a member of the Daley family, which led the city for nearly half a century, and then sweeping the two-person runoff. But what she’s gained in name recognition is being offset this year by the tumult of governing through a pandemic and an uptick in violence, which has surged in cities across the country.
“We have been through hell and back in the last four years. No one could have anticipated that we were going to go through a once-in-a-lifetime global pandemic,” Lightfoot said. “Am I completely understanding that people are feeling a sense of disquiet and concern? I absolutely get it. How could we not? But we need to keep forging ahead together.”
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
The final vote count for the election won’t be known for several hours or days. That’s when we’ll know who they’re trying to prop up.
“She” should win in a landslide based on her qualifications.
(/s) Well bless her heart. The poor woman already had at least two strikes against her when taking office, according to the fifth paragraph. Allowances must be made. (/s)
The article doesn't mention a Republican party slate or candidate. Was there a primary election for mayor and aldermen of any-or-all political parties ???
Is there even a Republican party still functioning and fielding candidates in Chicago ???
Leni
As someone who has no personal stake in who rules over Crimecago, I nevertheless find it interesting that the one person predicted to lead the nine-person field and make the runoff, Paul Vallas, is the only white male in the race. Not knowing anything other than what I saw on Axios, I would assume that he is a vestige of the Daley machine that ran the city for at least half a century.
There are only two ways a metropolis like Chicago, NYC, Philly, Boston, etc. can be effectively run. One is to have a machine that is basically a crime family, like the Daleys in Chicago or Tammany in NYC. The other is to have an SOB who is willing to put his life on the line to break the machine, like Teddy Roosevelt in NYC or Frank Rizzo in Philly.
Getting the latter is almost impossible these days, because the people who would vote for a true reformer have long since left the city limits.
Getting the former is also impossible, because the leadership of the cities’ Democrats is based, not primarily on ill-gotten riches, but on ideological purity. To put it more bluntly at the national level, the Clintons, who craved power and wealth, ran the country better than the wokesters behind the Bidens, who crave an anti-normal revolution—but the best years happened under Donald Trump, the SOB who did everything he could to break the machine. (DeSantis is doing the same in FL; whether he has the balls and the protection to do it nationally is another issue.)
Does the GOP even exist in opposition to the the Light-in-the-Loafers mayoral candidacy.....and the city council races?
I'm trying to be as clear in my questions as I can, LOL....I think you get what I'm getting at....oy veh.....
Leni
I have been surprised that no moderate democrat runs as a Republican, like they do in New York. Might be a regional thing, like deep dish pizza instead of folding pie shapes. Or New Yorkers putting sauerkraut on a hot dog.
Municipal elections in Chicago are technically non-partisan, meaning you get to vote for the Democrat of your choice. There used to be partisan elections, but not for several decades. As I recall, Bernard Epton was the last Republican to run for mayor, and that was in 1983.
Correction : former Cook County Democratic Party chairman “Fast Eddie” Vrdolyak ran for mayor as a Republican in 1989.
A friend of mine, a retired Chicago Cop sent me this comment regarding the mayoral race:
“Prepare for a long, drawn out drama stretching weeks after election day, counting mail-in ballots and settling other issues. I don’t expect a winner officially announced for another month.”
As to Fast Eddie, wish he would have won; I liked Fast Eddie’s style and he would have made a good mayor. Probably as corrupt as the rest of them, but a conservative at heart.
What used to be a great city on the beautiful Lake Michigan waterfront.... with great tourist attractions, museums of every kind, great entertainment, great restaurants......is now down the tank...and a dreadful killing field.
Leni
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