Somewhere in heaven Jane Byrne is smiling.
Bout f$#@ing time. If the person who gets this job is sincere about cleaning up the politics and the police department in Chicago, bless them, because they are marching into a well-oiled corruption machine that has its roots going back more than a century.
They? Preckwinkle is the president of the Cook County Democratic Party, i.e., the Machine.
This were weird elections… Ed Burke got re-elected (80%of his constituents are Latino, who had 2 candidates in the race, and he won). Arena, the sole independent alderman, lost elections. To a fireman (implication: insider). But O’Connor, the Emmanuel’s right hand, is in a runoff. He got 34% of the vote. So his opponent if endorsed by others in the race, can easily win… There were aldermanic races where 4-5 thousand people voted.
Too few people voted. All of it can be put on its head if more people vote.
And the absence of GOP… GOP is absent because they don’t have a message for urbanites. Other than racism. They have not had a message for them since Reagan’s attempt at financial ruin of the cities. This is GOP’s choice. Not Chicago Machine choice.
I watched the returns on WGN with periodic glances at the Sun-Times. The Trib was unsurprisingly paywalled. The biggest surprise for me last night was how utterly ordinary the reactions to the results were. Why not have a Black, female, and possibly gay mayor in the county’s third largest city? This bodes well for the Dems in 2020.
Good to see that the city is not in thrall to the Daley nam
Agreed. The are missing, because their ideas miss. What would they offer that will help all of Chicago? School vouchers? More “respect” for the police? Stand your ground? “Will-issue” concealed carry? School-starving tax cuts?
I don’t think Chicago is well served by an insider-controlled Democratic machine, but the GOP has ceased to be a credible supplier of alternative ideas and candidates. Hopefully, the large number of candidates in the first round is a sign that prospects are improving for Democratic candidates that are not insiders.
Arena the sole independent alderman? Where do you get that? Unless you meant sole independent alderman to lose?
Newsflash for those of you who don’t know Chicago politics. The “machine” has been dead for years, ever since Jayne Byrne defeated it in 1979. It is now a convenient whipping boy for any politician that has no issues to run on. Toni Preckwinkle was opposed by old time pols when she ran for Alderman years ago. Once in office she will have to deal with people of various political stripes. That doesn’t make her a “machine” politician.
Chicago will not elect somebody who gets up everyday with the idea of how ugly can I look today attitude.