By: Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/
In little more than a year several months, the great city of Chicago will select its next mayor. Following the retirement of Mayor Richard Daley, the field is wide open.
Enter Rahm Emanuel. A powerful Democrat and President Barack Obama’s former chief-of-staff, Mr. Emanuel currently looks like the front-runner for the office. With many strong candidates declining to run and his potential opposition divided, things look good for Mr. Emanuel.
And yet one shouldn’t overestimate Mr. Emanuel’s chances as media-anointed front-runner. Mr. Emanuel has a number of hidden weaknesses that may combine to badly damage his campaign.
More below.
A strong attack, for instance, could be levied against Mr. Emanuel as a Washington insider who doesn’t care for the little man. This attack is all the more damaging because its first portion is completely true: it is hard to find a politician more immersed in Washington than Mr. Emanuel.
There are other variations on this theme. There is the geography version: Mr. Emanuel is a carpet-bagger who hasn’t lived in Chicago and doesn’t care about it. There is the populist version: the Washington elite may have already declared Mr. Emanuel the winner, but Chicago doesn’t have to listen to what the elite say. There is the class version: Mr. Emanuel is one of the rich elite who don’t understand the concerns of the working-class. There is the race version: Mr. Emanuel is one of the white elite who don’t understand the concerns of Chicago’s minorities.
None of this possibilities has yet been tried out, or turned into a coherent critique of Mr. Emanuel. It is too early in the game for that. But already there are signs that Mr. Emanuel has limited appeal amongst Chicago’s poor and its minorities (who compose a majority of the city’s population).
Mr. Emanuel does have a lot of things going for him, more than for any other single candidate. He has the support of most of Chicago’s machine, the business community, the politically influential North Side, and probably President Barack Obama (although most pundits probably overrate the importance of an Obama endorsement). Other candidates would probably love to be in his position.
On the other hand, Harold Washington had all this interests aligned against him when he campaigned for mayor. Yet Mr. Washington – the first and to date only black mayor of Chicago – still won consecutive elections on the back of minority support.
Chicago has a run-off system, in which if nobody gets more than 50% of the vote, then the first two winners go on to a second-round. Most experts expect Mr. Emanuel to get in the somewhere in the 40s, if not an outright majority of the vote.
But it’s also quite conceivable that Mr. Emanuel polls in the low 30s come election day, if he fails to attract the working-class and minority votes that he needs to win in a place like Chicago.
I can’t wait until the day voters are sick of hearing that phrase and it backfires.
The deadline for nomination papers was the Monday before Thanksgiving, and candidates have been certified (or are challenges against them are being adjudicated).
Like you say, we have a two round system, but the primary is February 22 and the runoff, if necessary, is April 5th.
Sadly, like in New York (see the New York State Senate), there are sometimes rather clear racial fault lines between blacks and Hispanics, additionally, if Rahm comes off as too “machiney”, white “reformist” liberals may rebel against him too.
him because he’s seen as an insider who can get stuff done for the city and who has connections to the highest levels of power in the state and federal level.
the other day when the IL map was labeled “good government”. Illinois is still living with the Machine as we still see Alderman/ward bosses who can deliver lots of votes.
As the winds blow and Chicago drops below freezing does one wonder why we are seeing this election right now? Yup the Machine
might not be able to get the snow off the streets but it can deliver votes in the cold. Illinois has this early primary to discourage reform good government types to campaign-frankly most people in Chicago are thinking Christmas and not Mayor.Danny Davis is well-liked within the black community, but he’s supposedly made little outreach among other demographics, plus he’s the only candidate yet to launch a campaign website. Carol Moseley-Braun, for her part, is targeting Hispanics and white liberals, but her favorables in Chicago are only in the mid-50s – very low for any Democrat. James Meeks ain’t going anywhere, especially in the wake of his recent vote against the civil unions bill. Then, there’s Gery Chico, who has a strong, CLEAN resume, the lowest unfavorables of any candidate, and seems to be running a pretty steady campaign.
As it is, though, I think Moseley-Braun wins the #2 spot and Emanuel beats her by about 15. Watch her run vs. Mark Kirk in ’16.