Tomorrow, Chicago government may or may not change
Tomorrow, the City of Chicago will vote for mayor and 46 out of 50 aldermen. What happened with the other four aldermen? They are running unopposed - three Old Guard aldermen (Ed Burke (14th), Marty Quinn (13h) and Harry Osterman (48th)) and Ald Brendan Reilly (42nd).
(For the record, I live in the 48th Ward, so unlike rowandoll and his husband in the nearby 49th Ward, I haven't been barraged with robocalls and mailings)
But there's a wrinkle to it. You see, if none of the candidates for a position get more than than 50% of the vote, we get a run-off, with the top two candidates facing off during the April 7 elections.
We've had aldermenic elections go into run-offs many, many times. More so in the last couple of cycles, when independent candidates managed to win in long-time Old Guard strongholds (or just beat long-time incumbents). Nobody would be surprised if we get a few this time, just as nobody would be surprised if some aldermen avoided run-offs by ridiculously tiny margins. But what makes this especially tantalizing is that we may have a mayoral run-off.
It's been decades since we had an election this close. Even in 2011, when Mayor Richard M. Daley, the longest-serving mayor in Chicago history, decided not to run, and the field seemed wide-open, polls suggested that Emanuel was in clear lead. Around this time four years ago, polls favored him at 53-58%. Now, polls put him at 48%. With a 3.7% margin of error.
So it could go either way.
This is considering the fact that Emanuel campaign got millions upon millions of dollars in donations, blanketed all the major Chicago area broadcast channels with ads, sent out loads of campaign literature, created an attack website solely to counter one opponent's attack on one Emanuel administration policy, got a sort-of-endorsement from Obama...
(And seriously - it seemed like bloody Emanuel ads were at every freaking commercial break for the past three months. We've seen some ads for Chuy Garcia and (to much lesser extent) Willie Wilson, but nothing on Emanuel campaign's scale).
If we wind up getting a run-off (and it's still a huge if), polls suggest that, unless there's some last-minute upset, Emanuel would face off Garcia. Personally, I would have preferred to see Ald. Bob Fioretti (2nd) in this position. I like the guy, agree with most of his policies, and, unlike Garcia, he's actually been involved in Chicago politics in recent years. But, like I said, the poll numbers aren't there.
At least Wilson isn't in the lead, either. The more I hear from his campaign, the more I get a sense that he doesn't have any realistic ideas about how to run a city. And while he blanketed pretty much the all African-American neighborhoods on South and West sides (and Cook County Hospital) with campaign literature, I haven't really seen so much as a single flier on the North Side until last week. And even then, I've only seen his campaign stuff neighborhoods with sizable African-American population, like northern Rogers Park and my section of Edgewater.
You can't become a mayor of Chicago without getting votes on South, West and North Sides. It was true when Harold Washington, the city's first black mayor, ran in the 1980s, and it's true now. Especially for African-American candidates.
I really wish I could be in the city to follow the election every step of the way, but I'm not going to be able to. I'm working. I'm going to be northwest of Chicago, in a village where local elections are still over a month away.
But once I get home, I will find out whether all this build-up was for nothing... or if Chicago election would get a lot more interesting.
(For the record, I live in the 48th Ward, so unlike rowandoll and his husband in the nearby 49th Ward, I haven't been barraged with robocalls and mailings)
But there's a wrinkle to it. You see, if none of the candidates for a position get more than than 50% of the vote, we get a run-off, with the top two candidates facing off during the April 7 elections.
We've had aldermenic elections go into run-offs many, many times. More so in the last couple of cycles, when independent candidates managed to win in long-time Old Guard strongholds (or just beat long-time incumbents). Nobody would be surprised if we get a few this time, just as nobody would be surprised if some aldermen avoided run-offs by ridiculously tiny margins. But what makes this especially tantalizing is that we may have a mayoral run-off.
It's been decades since we had an election this close. Even in 2011, when Mayor Richard M. Daley, the longest-serving mayor in Chicago history, decided not to run, and the field seemed wide-open, polls suggested that Emanuel was in clear lead. Around this time four years ago, polls favored him at 53-58%. Now, polls put him at 48%. With a 3.7% margin of error.
So it could go either way.
This is considering the fact that Emanuel campaign got millions upon millions of dollars in donations, blanketed all the major Chicago area broadcast channels with ads, sent out loads of campaign literature, created an attack website solely to counter one opponent's attack on one Emanuel administration policy, got a sort-of-endorsement from Obama...
(And seriously - it seemed like bloody Emanuel ads were at every freaking commercial break for the past three months. We've seen some ads for Chuy Garcia and (to much lesser extent) Willie Wilson, but nothing on Emanuel campaign's scale).
If we wind up getting a run-off (and it's still a huge if), polls suggest that, unless there's some last-minute upset, Emanuel would face off Garcia. Personally, I would have preferred to see Ald. Bob Fioretti (2nd) in this position. I like the guy, agree with most of his policies, and, unlike Garcia, he's actually been involved in Chicago politics in recent years. But, like I said, the poll numbers aren't there.
At least Wilson isn't in the lead, either. The more I hear from his campaign, the more I get a sense that he doesn't have any realistic ideas about how to run a city. And while he blanketed pretty much the all African-American neighborhoods on South and West sides (and Cook County Hospital) with campaign literature, I haven't really seen so much as a single flier on the North Side until last week. And even then, I've only seen his campaign stuff neighborhoods with sizable African-American population, like northern Rogers Park and my section of Edgewater.
You can't become a mayor of Chicago without getting votes on South, West and North Sides. It was true when Harold Washington, the city's first black mayor, ran in the 1980s, and it's true now. Especially for African-American candidates.
I really wish I could be in the city to follow the election every step of the way, but I'm not going to be able to. I'm working. I'm going to be northwest of Chicago, in a village where local elections are still over a month away.
But once I get home, I will find out whether all this build-up was for nothing... or if Chicago election would get a lot more interesting.