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Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright
I'm sorry, but I can't take your post seriously given the above in bold. Did you pay attention to the last election? Rahm is anything, but machine. The machine people hate him. Chico was a machine candidate and lost, effectively beheading the machine for the first time in decades. Virtually his first move in office was to strip Ed Burke (a classic machine prince if there ever was one) of his cadre of on duty police officers. People who are long time machine supporters loathe him and with good reason.
Also, what makes you think Rahm would have any chance of losing a runoff? Chuy is going to get less than half as many votes as Rahm, it would take an absolute miracle for him to more than double his vote count. Rahm is going to dump money on his competitors in the next couple of weeks and push his numbers over. If you split the undecideds along the same lines as the results, Rahm beats the runoff by about 1%. That's also assuming that Rahm doesn't push that ratio up at all with his mountain of cash.
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The reason that there is this debate is because we now live in an age where who is machine and who is not machine is nowhere near as black and white as it used to be. I can name you machine Aldermen/Ward Committemen who are backing Rahm right now (Alderman Quinn in the 13th ward who rose up working for Mike Madigan, I know because I live near there, know how the signs are put up and have some inside information) and machine Alderman who are sitting out of the Mayor's race (my Alderman Zalewski in the 23rd ward).
Frankly this whole "Rahm is as anti-machine as you can get" is frankly just pro-Rahm propaganda. Rahm is shades of grey, you can argue it either way and in some ways that is part of his genius, he can get some machine votes in addition to many people with a more reform sensibility. Also on the other side you have progressives who always say "Rahm is so machine because he worked for Daley, blah blah blah".
There is no "one all powerful machine that controls everything" anymore, there are mini-machines and machines within machines and odd coalitions of reformers and progressives, some who support Rahm and some who don't because again people can see him either way and do.
Chuy Garcia and Bob Fioretti, love them, hate them or indifferent to them are clearly non-machine (unless you count Chuy's Latino grassroots organizations going back to the Harold Washington days as a "machine", still there is a HUGE irony in anyone thinking a guy who got his start in the Washington days could possibly be machine or "old Chicago", credit to Rahm's spin doctors if they actually convince people of that). I mean dear lord I think I actually read someone argue on here that Karen Lewis is machine!
I say this as someone who has both machine and reform sensibilities myself, I understand the history of Chicago politics but to claim that it is as simple black and white as "Rahm is the most reform politician ever" is simply ludicrous and it undercuts any argument one can make about the good reforms Rahm has made.
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Originally Posted by the urban politician
Emanuel crosses 50 percent mark in pre-election poll
Looks like the debates did make a difference.
I think Rahm's chance of willing a runoff is far higher than 50%. Rahm is doing fairly well with undecided, and would probably pick off at least some of the Fioretti or other peoples' votes, at least enough to get him past 50%. In addition, it looks like Daley is probably going to issue an endorsement for him soon.
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As I suspected before even opening the link it is a poll where "undecided" is not an option so it is the wording of the survey being different and probably has little to do with the debates: "The new figures come from political polling firm Ogden & Fry, which has been doing surveys every week but this time also did a poll without "undecided" as an option.
Two surveys came out today. In the first, Emanuel had 41.2 percent, a smidge below last week's 41.7 percent. There were 20.9 percent undecided.
But in the second, "undecided" was not an option. In that one, Emanuel hit 51.3 percent—enough, if accurate, to avoid an April runoff but within the survey's error margin of 3.71 percent.
I'd caution that the poll didn't push undecided voters to make up their minds. Rather, voters just didn't have the option of "undecided." First poll, there were 969 respondents. Second poll, 727.
Most other surveys I'm familiar with find Emanuel at around 40 percent or slightly above, with a huge undecided figure. If those folks break heavily against him and actually vote, he's headed for a runoff. But if they stay home—as some undecided voters are wont to do—or if he captures at least a third of them, it's time for him to write his inaugural speech.
Solid analysis there, it is within the margin of error and it all depends on what the undecideds do, if they even end up voting. So this result is not surprising to me, my prediction was that it will be very close, maybe even recount to see whether or not there is a run-off. It also helps that both polls, one with undecided as an option and the other not an option, are done by the same pollster.
As far as what you said about the odds of Rahm surviving a runoff thanks for clarifying that you are of the camp his odds would be better than 50%. I have gotten into vehement disagreements with people who say that Rahm's chances of winning a runoff are less than 50% (albeit usually anti-Rahm people) so it is interesting to hear the other side of the argument. So I say 50/50 given arguments about his funding but also taking into account the large anti-Rahm sentiment out there.