Cuz that appears to be what the voters of Chicago are giving him tonight.
— Billmon (@billmon1) February 25, 2015
I did not post about the Chicago mayoral primary earlier, not least because I didn’t think I understood the situation well enough. So I’ll just pass along this Bloomberg report…
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who breezed into City Hall four years ago, fell short of winning a majority against four opponents and will face Cook County Commissioner Jesus “Chuy” Garcia in an April 7 runoff.
The failure of Emanuel, a former White House chief of staff and U.S. representative, to win more than 50 percent of the vote in the nonpartisan election Tuesday is a clear sign of discord in the third-largest city, where $20 billion in unfunded pension liabilities threaten insolvency and citizens are plagued by persistent violence.
With 95 percent of precincts reporting, Emanuel had 45.4 percent and Garcia had 33.9 percent, according to the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners. The six-week runoff campaign will likely focus on the candidates’ solutions for addressing the financial crisis and gun crime…
… along with a comment from a thread here earlier tonight:
… I decided to vote for Chuy Garcia against Rahmbo and I was surprised to see that Chuy made a run-off, which will be held in six weeks. He gave a good speech tonight and has a legitimate chance to pull off the upset if he can rally the anti-Rahm vote (Rahm 45; Chuy 34) from the other three candidates.
Chuy is kind of a legend in Chicago progressive politics. He was a major force in the pro-Harold Washington coalition in the 80’s, was the first Hispanic elected to the State Senate and is now on the Cook County Board; essentially the floor leader for Toni Preckwinkle. Ho only reluctantly entered the mayoral race, starting slow, but finishing strong. And definitely gathering momentum tonight. Rahm will probably bury him in ads, but I’m hopeful that Chuy could make this a legitimate race. Turn-out today was terrible and Chicago needs a healthy debate about the issues.
Your thoughts, commentariat?
Omnes Omnibus
Rahm is a moron. All he ever needed to do was be a centrist Dem and he was mayor for life if he chose. He chose otherwise.
John Revolta
Es bueno.
Omnes Omnibus
Maybe a h/t and link to the comment you copied?
Anne Laurie
@Omnes Omnibus: Don’t want to spotlight the commentor without asking permission, and they may well have gone to bed already.
Omnes Omnibus
@Anne Laurie: I get that, but when you quote that much of something they already posted on the web, I , for one would, for one, would to know with whom I agree or disagree.
Violet
Ha ha ha ha ha.
HaroldPaul
Rahm already buried Chuy in TV ads and it didn’t work. The weather on April 7 (runoff election day) will be a lot nicer than today. People will believe that Rahm can be beat. I think Chicago is going to get it’s first Hispanic mayor.
JimRittenhouse
Rahm tried to follow in the Daley tradition of sucking up to the rich guys and screwing the neighborhood and the average guy, while having a Mighty Wurlitzer PR setup to distract said average guy from their daily Daley miseries – especially the extortionate things like Red Light Cameras, parking meter ripoffs, and on and on. The folks didn’t know this guy Garcia, but they sure as heck knew that they didn’t want Rahmbo.
srv
@Omnes Omnibus: Maybe he should hire Howard Dean for the runoff.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
As I said in the thread below, Rahm aspired to be the next Daley when he was a mere Bilandic.
And for the uninitiated, the Democratic primary for mayor of Chicago essentially is the election, because no Republican ever has or ever will win in Chicago, so the election in November is a mere formality.
srv
Rahm is running Obama’s domestic Black Sites:
Fred Fnord
I’m not sure whether Rahm is just going to do his best and then, if he loses, just gracefully accept the fact and get hired by someone who will give him a billion dollars for his good work (in, say, education), or if Rahm is going to be the asshole he always is and try as hard as he can to destroy his competition. But if I had to bet, I’d say that Chuy is going to see some really impressive black ops maneuvers, including a bunch of very illegal ones. Rahm plays for keeps and there is literally nothing that he hates more than someone to his left.
Not that that’s a rare thing, mind you.
SatanicPanic
Having a major city in the USA with a guy named Chuy as mayor would be the greatest thing ever
HaroldPaul
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini): The last time the Republicans controlled the Illinois legislature (1996?), they gave Chicago nonpartisan municipal elections in the hope that they could challenge Democratic dominance here. It didn’t really work out for them but the upshot is that whoever wins the runoff is mayor – no general election in the fall.
Go Chuy!
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@HaroldPaul:
I moved away in 1988 (North Shore native, love the city, hate the cold) so I did not know that. But I’m pretty sure no Republican ever has a chance, yes? :-)
ruemara
I would vote for Jesus. In a heartbeat. I would vote for Jesus Chuy in a nanosecond. Hope he wins.
EconWatcher
Emanuel got 45% of the vote in a crowded field; not sure it’s time to write his political obituary just yet.
Morzer
The more I see of Rahm, the less I like him. He’s the sort of fake Democrat that gives the party a bad name by screwing over the ordinary people and kissing up to rich fraudsters and glibertarians.
moderateindy
The truth is that it wasn’t some great uprising against Rahm. The other candidates, for the most part, were African American, and drained that part of the vote from Rahm. For whatever reason, African Americans in Chicago don’t tend to support Hispanic candidates, and vice versa. Unless there is a super crappy turnout by evrybody else, combined with a big Hispanic turn out, Rahm will probably coast in the runoff.
Joey Maloney
I want to hear the candidates answer questions about the Chicago PDs illegal interrogation site in Homan Square. Of course, I don’t know who’s going to be asking those questions, since none of Chicago’s 5 tv stations or 2 newspapers seem to be interested in covering the story at all.
Gvg
I want to hear how certain this black site is and that it’s not just a story. given the fact that US armed forces tortured in the war on terrorism, the CIA was doing it and all the bad news about our over militarized police lately, it is possible and I was primed to believe it but I have just realized I haven’t actually seen anything except a couple of allegations I don’t know the source of nor credibility. sooo…. Who knows about this?
Bobby B.
@Gvg: Those of us who grew up near Chicago are not surprised by Chicago police atrocities. The local media know when to keep silent ( see protest news of a few years ago, 1968, etc).
Villago Delenda Est
Rahm is frankly a sack of shit. Always has been. I was very disappointed when Obama selected him as CofS.
Ben Cisco
Glad to see the runoff, hope Chuy mops the floor with Rahmbo.
Rahm was definitely a bad call by PBO.
Keith G
Jesus v Emanuel?
RSR
The runoff is how the CORE teachers (the progressive block) seized control of the Chicago Teachers Union. Had Karen Lewis not fallen ill, she might have outright won the election yesterday. As it is, three CORE backed teachers have also forced sitting city council members into runoffs as well.
There’s something happening in Chicago that others can and should replicate.
And eff those wimps/backroom dealers who caved and failed to try this against Cuomo in NY. Cuomo is still trying to crush teachers even though your union and the Working Families Party tried to placate him.
mai naem mobile
I’ve never liked Rahmbo. Glad he’s got to face a run off. Would.be happy to see Chuy win even though i know nothing about Chuy. It would be nice to have a hispanic Dem in a bigger job than just Congressional Rep. I wonder if PBO picked Rahm because he had House and Banksta experience and had been a Clinton guy. We have a tendency of forgetting where Obama was at when he won. Also Pelosi liked Rahmbo.
bmcchgo
A couple of months ago there was concern that Rahm’s low approval ratings might make him vulnerable in a multi-candidate election. However, all that was needed was for him to blanket the Chicago media market with a slew of feel good TV ads and his approvals turned around.
There was a general assumption around these parts (I live in a Chgo suburb) that Rahm wold cruise to re-election and avoid a run off. But I suspected a low turnout (33%) could change that assumption and it did.
All bets are off. There’s a large Hispanic populace in Chicago and enough anti-Rahm sentiment in the rest of the city that could make this very interesting.
Princess
I think Chuy has a good chance. 54% of the people who voted already know they don’t want Rahm. It is a question as to how many of those AA votes he can get, but Wilson already said last night that he would not ask his voters to back Rahm (a little bit of a surprise since he was a big Rauner supporter). Most importantly, lots of people who aren’t fans of Rahm (including lots of Latino/a voters) who didn’t think anyone else but him had a chance and so stayed home, now know he’s vulnerable.
Limehen
@RSR: Agreed. This is the one thing that outside observers (Bloomberg) don’t really give enough credit to. Yeah, the pension stuff and violence are important, but that’s chicago as usual. If Chuy’s going to give Rahm a contest, it will be over schools (the recent closure of 50 schools, the attacks on the ctu, and the city’s apparent desire for an elected school board) and the curious way that Friends of Rahm (including the Obamas, in the prez library process) seem to get everything they want. It will be interesting to see if the president uses any more political capital on Rahm, or if he’ll cut him loose and give the prez library to Columbia.
low-tech cyclist
There are so many reasons to want to see Rahm’s butt kicked out of office, it’s hard to keep track of them all. But the ‘black site’ that the Chicago PD has been running under his watch would have been the last straw, if one had been needed.
I didn’t even know there was an election going on out there. But I’m gonna be sending Garcia a few shekels.
Hunter
Well, I’m crossing my fingers. (I, personally, wouldn’t vote for Emanuel if he were the only one running.)
shortstop
@moderateindy: Although that’s generally true (and Emanuel did lead Garcia among black voters yesterday, not that very many voted for either), Rahm’s school closings are particularly damaging to him in this case. I think we will see some coalescing among voters of color behind Garcia. Whether it will be enough to take Garcia through — not sure.
@RSR: This. National media is missing a big part of the story, which is that MANY Rahm-backed aldermen (including mine) are going to runoff and that upwards of 85-90 percent of voters supported an elected school board in a non-binding referendum. This is going to be an interesting six weeks.
I’m laughing at the pundits that are trying to call this an embarrassment for Obama. Anyone with even a passing familiarity with what’s been happening here knows this is not about Obama. It’s all about Rahm.
(And I’m cracking up at Mnemosyne not knowing about Chicago municipal runoffs as she tries to explain things to the “uninitiated.”)
shortstop
@moderateindy: I would add that this is the first time a mayoral candidate has gone to runoff in decades of having the law, and Emanuel faced a very crowded and diverse field in his original election, too, while still managing to get above 50 percent. There was indeed an uprising against him yesterday, and no small one, either, when you look at the stats on incumbent reelection in previous administrations. Whether the black and Latino communities will combine forces strongly enough to put Garcia over is another question.
japa21
A lot of people are angry at Rahm. A lot of people are really pissed at the new governor Rauner. Rahm is a close friend of Rauner. If Chuy doesn’t try to use that friendship as a weapon against Rahm, I will be shocked.
NobodySpecial
@shortstop:
It IS about Rahm, but BHO had the lack of sense to make a big push for Rahm to avoid the runoff, and that went south. Sucks to spend your political capital on a loser.
Librarian
Rahm is a close friend of Rauner.
Why am I not at all surprised to hear that?
Princess
I did not know that Rahm was a close friend of Rauner until this thread but it doesn’t surprise me. I was pretty sure that the major snafus in the election in Chicago last November (2 hour + lines in my pro-Quinn area, and that doesn’t count the election judge mess, which we never heard anything more about) were a product of local Democratic anti-Quinn ratfucking, not Republican.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@shortstop:
Yes, if only someone who currently lived there could have been bothered to try and explain.
Samuel Knight
This is a local election with lots of big political implications for the Democratic Party.
Will African American voters line up with a Hispanic candidate?
How will Obama, the Clintons, Howard Dean and Warren act? Will any one of them go to Chicago now and take a side?
Will the insurgent candidate be able to pin 1%, Washington and other negatives on the incumbent?
How much will the changed turnout in 6 weeks change the odds?
How will the black house story impact the campaign?
etc.
BGinCHI
Voted for Chuy yesterday.
Rahm is going to have a hard time facing an actual opponent rather than a field. And I’ll tell you what: LOTS of white folks are angry at him over the CTU situation and all of the bullying tactics.
If turnout is good he’s fucked.
mak
@shortstop:
John Pope, 10th Ward, Southeast Side, is among the Rahm-allied aldermen facing a run-off. The 10th ward is covered in petcoke, the toxic black dust waste product of refining dirty tar sands oil, which the beloved Koch bros. store in huge uncovered piles on the Southeast side. The shit is just piled up in the open, and blows all over the place, even showing up floating in the lake 30 miles north in NW Indiana, where my mom lives. After going back and forth on supporting Koch money (Rahm’s natural constituency) vs. the health of local residents, Rahm and Pope made a show of recently getting tough with the Kochs, who claim they’ll stop storing the stuff there. Not sure if that was all for campaign show or not, but it is telling that Pope’s run-off opponent, Susan Sadlowski Garza, is area VP of the Chgo teachers union, proposes doing away with all red-light cameras, and supports a total ban on petcoke.
Elie
@Limehen:
Aren’t there two Chicago universities competing for Obama’s library? (U of Chicago and U of Illinois at Chicago.)
Elie
@mak:
I am learning a lot about my “home” city where I haven’t lived for many years. What I am learning just from reading this site is opening my eyes but making me sad….I appreciate all the good info..
Amber
I voted for Rham the first time around. What I remember was him coming out and blasting Daley’s move that privatized the public parking. My thought was good, that’s a good sign. Then he comes in and goes Rhambo on education. Closing dozens of schools without true input and giving truckloads of money to privatized charter schools; all the while blasting CPS, the union and teachers. I know teachers in CPS and it is a shi*** job. These teachers have to deal with a LOT and they’re certainly not living the high life. The whole “they have big salaries” is bs. I pay $1100/month for an average 1bd apt (no stainless steel and “fancy”) on the far North side (one of the cheapest areas in the Chi you can be). 1 bedroom! Yes, teachers in Chicago should be able to afford damn housing and so the cost of living needs to play a factor in it – just like in the private sector.
The whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth – and I don’t even have kids. Then I read a few weeks ago that Rham is BFFs with Rauner and I turned to my boyfriend and said “I am NOT voting for Rahm. This seals it.” Rauner is poised to make IL into an IN or WI dystopia of giveaways to big corp and rich people while squeezing all the rest of us out of existence or into modern day share croppers. Though I don’t know as much as I would want to about Chuy, he was the best alternative candidate out of the others and did/will get my vote.
Amber
@Samuel Knight: All Chuy needs to do is pin Rauner on Rham. The rest will then start falling in line for him. Not to say it won’t be filled with drama and other issues (for instance if the President weighs in, again…more forcefully). Chuy certainly has a few issues himself. But if Chuy can wrap Rham with Rauner so a vote for one means support of the other, well then Rham will not get a second term.
delk
The big story is the 32-34 per cent voter turn out.
FFS, a woman interviewed said it was so inconvenient and she didn’t want to wait in long lines to vote in the cold.
We have early voting. I voted Saturday when the temps were in the high 20’s. Took the L to the loop, voted at Cook County Clerks office, and was home in less than 45 minutes. Even picked up a loaf of bead and a half gallon of milk, for christ’s sake.
My husband voted yesterday. No line to vote at 8:00 am. He was number 35 to have voted.
I’m reminded of last year. All those anti-gay states crowing that 85% of their voters voted for traditional marriage yet only 30% of their voters turned out.
Kerry Reid
@Omnes Omnibus: Agreed. And though Chuy is popular, he was late to the race after Karen Lewis of the Chicago Teachers Union decided she couldn’t run because of a brain tumor. And that “crowded field” of opponents means that over 50% of the (admittedly low turn-out) electorate yesterday decided that re-hiring Rahm was not their preference. This despite all his money and star wattage. (And I actually didn’t mind that Obama selected Rahm as his chief of staff, and I figured the endorsement was a chit. But still — they are both far too cozy with charter schools as a panacea. That has long been my persistent gripe against Obama, despite the fact that I am generally a strong supporter.) Rahm’s buddy-buddy relationship with Rauner, Illinois’ answer to Scott Walker, should also bite him in the ass in a fair world.
He might still pull it off, of course. But the fact that several of his most reliable rubber-stamp allies are also facing run-offs in the City Council races suggests a glimmer of hope for me that the calculus has shifted a bit.
Kerry Reid
@Amber: This is what we call “Pinning the Asshole on the Pseudo-Donkey.”
mclaren
Rahm Emanuel represents the absolute worst of authoritarian corporatocratic DINO Democrats, so anything that damages Emanuel’s career is good. More generally, any political trend that disempowers authoritarian thugs like Rahm Emanuel is an encouraging sign, insofar as it prods the Democratic party toward more populist liberal policies. Any more of the Joe-Biden-style far-right corporate-deep-throating surveillance-state endless-foreign-wars death spiral the Democratic party is in right now (can you say “HIllary Goldman Sachs Clinton”?), and the Democratic party will become unelectable.