The one thing we know for sure is that the Chicago City Council will never be the same. Nineteen runoffs, seven that came very close to a runoff and one incumbent knocked off outright means a lot of potential seat changes. A tightly contested mayoral race also means those 19 remaining contested ward races will get a whole new level of attention from voters and donors.Today, the Aldertrack team spoke to dozens of consultants, alderman, candidates and activists in an effort to understand the new playing field. Almost all of those conversations were off the record because all of these people still have something at stake for the April 7 runoff. This report is a digest of what we learned today.
Mayoral
Almost uniformly, our sources say Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s path to a runoff victory is still unclear, but he has an apparatus that can execute well and ready access to plenty of money to keep the gears turning. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia has a path to victory, our sources say, but he lacks enough talented staff to execute a strategy and raise (and find) the money needed to win. There will be lots of national interest from union and progressive groups that will want to assist Garcia’s campaign, but whether or not they will be able to mesh with his existing team has to be resolved.
The most important endorsements to secure will be Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, Willie Wilson and Bob Fioretti, in that order. Preckwinkle will either endorse Garcia or do nothing for either candidate. Wilson and Fioretti both told Fran Spielman last night that they would support Garcia, but Wilson’s campaign told us this morning they are still working on details on exactly what sort of work for Garcia an endorsement would mean. The devil will be in the details.
Not lost on anyone is that the runoff election is two days after Easter, when plenty of African American voters will listen to a sermon at church. Willie Wilson is better poised than anyone to ensure the “right” message is delivered.
We’re told the two mayoral campaigns started working on rounding up aldermanic candidate support late last night; calls started up again well before breakfast to winning alderman and runoff candidates across the city. Not surprisingly, Emanuel and Garcia are doing everything they can to set their teams in the wards.
The Council
The biggest change, however, is that the mayor runoff, and the sheer volume of aldermanic runoffs puts everything in flux. Since Richard M. Daley’s election in 1989, Chicago government has thrived on stability. That stability is is threatened now, as nobody is quite sure who will be the man at the top. Committee chairmanships, major city projects and sacred cows are all up for grabs as horse trading is just beginning and is likely to continue until the bitter end.
Our sources tell us that while big corporate CEOs have strongly backed Rahm in the past, medium-sized and smaller business leaders–the majority of the business taxpayers in Chicago–see no benefit to sticking their neck out for either mayoral candidate. A better investment, they believe, is to play in the 19 Council runoffs to find leaders who will protect their interests in what is sure to be a chaotic next four years in Chicago government.
Incumbents heading into a runoff will be pressed hard to align with Emanuel, we’re told, but there’s little incentive to do so, since yesterday’s results show little connection between supporting a mayor candidate and an aldermanic candidate. Endorsements, whether they come from aldermen, congressmen or presidents, have much less impact than they did in the past, it seems. So aligning ward organizations with one mayoral campaign or another will have less to do with getting votes than ensuring a place at the table after the election.
Progressive groups are also salivating at the chance to create an actual, effective Progressive Caucus in the Council. Between the wins progressives expect in the runoffs, sitting Progressive Caucus members and aldermen they would hope to peel off from the sort-of-progressive Paul Douglas Caucus, as many as 19 members of the Council could become Progressive Caucus members. A group that sizable would force any mayor–or Ald. Ed Burke–to negotiate with them on every major issue. All of a sudden, the Chicago City Council might actually behave like a typical legislative body.
― Jeff, Thursday, 26 February 2015 12:08 (nine years ago) link