CHICAGO | Politics and Current Events

[thegoatman]

Originally Posted by Klippenstein

Will Chuy run? Supposedly we should know sometime next week. He's cutting it close.

Imagine someone even further to the left of Lightfoot running this city. Jesus Christ. We need another Rahm in office

[Vlajos]

Originally Posted by thegoatman

Imagine someone even further to the left of Lightfoot running this city. Jesus Christ. We need another Rahm in office

My only hope is that the far left candidates cannibalize their vote and non get to the runoff.

[Chisouthside]

Far left candidates? where are the anarcho syndicalists or stalinist candidates?

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by thegoatman

Imagine someone even further to the left of Lightfoot running this city. Jesus Christ. We need another Rahm in office

Lightfoot isn't THAT far left. If she was, she wouldn't have increased the CPD budget. And she increased their budget, not decreased it. She's also called out judges for being too lenient on pre trial and sentencing and called out Evans on his expansion of EM. She's not as far left as people think.

[Steely Dan]

Hey Darren, time to crawl back to your stupid little irrelevant "hell hole", you monumental fuck.

[Steely Dan]

Steinberg nails it.

of course FAR more eloquently than myself.

Buh-bye, Bailey. Don’t let the door ...
Maybe telling folks whose votes you need that they live in a “hellhole” wasn’t smart politics.

By Neil Steinberg
Nov 8, 2022


Just when we were really getting to know Darren Bailey, history sweeps him back to the downstate cornfield whence he sprouted.

A shame. I’m not sure exactly where Bailey belongs in the range of inept Illinois Republican candidates. Not as feckless as xenophobe airborne milkman Jim Oberweis, warning about the immigrant peril. Not as goofy as carpetbagger Alan Keyes. But then who could be? The man has a cameo in “Borat.”

Maybe we could smile at Bailey because he was never a threat. Because Illinois has become an island of blue reason and civil liberty in a vast sea of red Trumpy malice, delusion and proto-fascism. Bailey was declared a loser by the Associated Press at the stroke of 7 p.m. At least, unlike his orange hero, it seems he’ll accept the results of a free election.

What, if anything, will be remembered about Bailey? Kicking off his campaign by curling up in Donald Trump’s lap and purring until he was petted? His repeatedly calling Chicago a “hellhole?” His stunt of moving into 875 N. Michigan Avenue, in order to expose himself to the dangers of a Gold Coast luxury high-rise?

full article: https://chicago.suntimes.com/columni...rime-steinberg

[Tom In Chicago]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Hey Darren, time to crawl back to your stupid little irrelevant "hell hole", you monumental fuck.

Where's the LIKE button on this forum???

. . .

[glowrock]

Originally Posted by Tom In Chicago

Where's the LIKE button on this forum???

. . .

Exactly!!!

[pip]

Glad Pritzker won! I think he has been a good governor of Illinois

[Kenmore]

Originally Posted by thegoatman

Imagine someone even further to the left of Lightfoot running this city. Jesus Christ. We need another Rahm in office

working hard to make it happen

[urbanpln]

Originally Posted by thegoatman

Imagine someone even further to the left of Lightfoot running this city. Jesus Christ. We need another Rahm in office

Lori is not a leftist. She's not that much different from Rahm politically. She's more of a centrist.

[OhioGuy]

Chuy’s in: Garcia makes another run for mayor of Chicago
“Folks know me,” the 66-year-old Garcia told the Sun-Times. “They know what I’ve done.” In 2015, Garcia, now a Democratic congressman, forced then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel into Chicago’s first mayoral runoff election.
By Fran Spielman Nov 10, 2022, 3:00am PST

Portraying himself as the “coalition builder” Chicago needs, U.S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia (D-Ill.) will join the crowded race for mayor on Thursday, determined to defeat the incumbent, Lori Lightfoot, with or without his lifelong allies in the Chicago Teachers Union.

Unwilling to wait for Garcia to make up his mind, the CTU has endorsed one of their own: Cook County Commissioner and CTU organizer Brandon Johnson.

Johnson has insisted he won’t drop out to make way for Garcia. Nor is the CTU willing to reconsider its endorsement of Johnson with Garcia in the race. Garcia forced then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel into a 2015 runoff with the CTU’s help.

During a wide-ranging interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, Garcia said he would love to unite the progressive movement he has championed for a lifetime — but is prepared to go it alone if it’s too late for that in the first round of balloting. He’s confident he can force Lightfoot into a run-off, and the progressive family will reunite behind him then.

“Folks know me. … They know what I’ve done. I know we will eventually get their support. I’m the only guy left from the Harold Washington coalition. ... No one in Chicago politics today has been involved in fighting the old corrupt and racist and sexist Chicago Machine [longer] than myself,” the 66-year-old Garcia said.

[Steely Dan]

it looks like the IL dem's gerrymandering plan for the house districts worked.

the dem candidates won all 6 of the competitive house districts, meaning that 14 of the 17 reps that IL will send to the US house next term will be dems, making IL the overall "bluest" big state in the interior by far. we are the beating blue heart of the nation.

the only 3 IL republican reps will be from the 3 giant downstate cornfield districts.




another thing noticed from the election results, pritzker obviously destroyed bailey in chicagoland, but he also picked up 4 downstate counties.

he got comfortable leads in rock island and champaign counties, and eked out ever so slight leads in peoria and mcclean (bloomington/normal) counties.

[Kenmore]

chuy missed his moment, we're going left

[Handro]

What's Chuy's deal? He almost became mayor 7 years ago and I still don't know what his positions are on anything, other than the fact he was against Ashland BRT.

He seems like just another career cog in the Chicago machine, I don't understand the appeal at all.

[SamInTheLoop]

Originally Posted by urbanpln

Lori is not a leftist. She's not that much different from Rahm politically. She's more of a centrist.

That's right. I found the leftist comment baffling. A lot of folks just have a poor grasp of the actual electorate and candidate political spectrum and distribution. And then some of course, do understand but are motivated to intentionally play with the range/median etc.

[SamInTheLoop]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

it looks like the IL dem's gerrymandering plan for the house districts worked.

the dem candidates won all 6 of the competitive house districts, meaning that 14 of the 17 reps that IL will send to the US house next term will be dems, making IL the overall "bluest" big state in the interior by far. we are the beating blue heart of the nation.

the only 3 IL republican reps will be from the 3 giant downstate cornfield districts.




another thing noticed from the election results, pritzker obviously destroyed bailey in chicagoland, but he also picked up 4 downstate counties.

he got comfortable leads in rock island and champaign counties, and eked out ever so slight leads in peoria and mcclean (bloomington/normal) counties.

I'm disappointed that Pritzker didn't win by more than 12 pts or so. More than a little embarrasing.

Final thing on Bailey before we can hopefully forget him forever: That accent.
Do we believe completely authentic? There are a bunch of Republican politicians, some prominent nationally, who will develop and use a 'stage' accent/dialect for the new Republican base audience. These, I believe, tend to be more of the elite/ivy league-educated types who adopt these to more effectively connect and pander to their voters. Bailey certainly doesn't fit that mold, but I still struggle to believe (and yes I'm very familiar with the southern extent of the state) a real live person, born and raised in Illinois, could authentically sound exactly like that, without having lived for an extended time in the true South/some sort of formal vocal training/highly committed mimicry etc.

Real question.

[Steely Dan]

^ i think it's real.

a good friend of my dad ended up raising his family down in a tiny little town in newton county, IN (~70 miles south of chicago), and his two sons had THICK country twang.

and Xenia might as well be in kentucky for all practical purposes.

if bailey had been running for the governorship of kentucky, he'd have probably won!

[SamInTheLoop]

^ Yeah, I'm sure you're probably right. It's the real thing.


Re your point about improved performance downstate (at least in places, but my guess would be increasing margins generally), something ardecila recently wrote, below, in the business/economy thread about hate for home state (sometimes even home city) resonates here:

"For Chicago, the hate is definitely aimed at the city. Suburbanites and downstaters both point to the city as the source of all ills, even though half of our dysfunction is from conservative rural-friendly policies being forced onto a vibrant dense metro area."

I think Bailey effectively stirred up both anti-city sentiment within the suburbs/downstate, and probably some anti-entire Chicagoland sentiment downstate, as their clearly is a lot of that. Fortunately the city and Chicagoland are as dominant in Illinois in population (and obviously a lot else) as they are! Ok, back to regularly-scheduled forgetting about him forever.

[ardecila]

^ The election was going to be won in the suburbs, where the majority of Illinoisans live. The problem (and this is national) is that many suburbanites may be small-c conservative, but they don't really like Trump. Rural and small town people worship Trump though, so any statewide Republican candidate has to walk a very fine line. Bailey obviously failed to balance the country folk and the suburbanites.

His comment about Chicago being a hell-hole is pretty inconsequential, plenty of people in the suburbs feel that way too and city dwellers were never gonna vote for him anyway. What killed him in the suburbs was cozying up to Trump too closely, and not even bothering to triangulate on abortion which most suburbanites support.

Originally Posted by Handro

What's Chuy's deal? He almost became mayor 7 years ago and I still don't know what his positions are on anything, other than the fact he was against Ashland BRT.

He seems like just another career cog in the Chicago machine, I don't understand the appeal at all.

Chuy's been a strong supporter of transit investment in Congress. I don't know his platform yet, but it's gotta be better than Lightfoot (how could it be worse?)

He will probably govern like Daley, but with a progressive sheen - that is, he will work to make the pie as big as possible and spread the goodies around to everybody including both teachers and cops. Let's just hope he is more fiscally responsible than Daley was.