<"Stop Digging, Stop Digging":
Take I/The Reckoner>
<i.>
Mayor Lori Lightfoot's flagging re-election effort in Chicago reminds me of a color quote by the '70s-era British politician Denis Healey: "Healey's first law of politics: when you're in a hole, stop digging." Ironic advice indeed, as Healey would lose two bids for the Labour Party's leadership, in 1976 and 1980. He settled for deputy leader, only to face a stiff challenge in 1981, in which he retained his new post by a margin of less than one percent.
Barely two years later, Margaret Thatcher's landslide re-election would render Healey -- and many of his colleagues -- totally irrelevant. He duly resigned, and fell into the traditional roles allotted to British political also-rans (House of Lords, Shadow Cabinet memberships). He was the House of Lords' oldest sitting member when he died, at 98, in 2015.
\What's worth noting here is that Healey never rose above the two major Cabinet posts that he held (Chancellor of the Exchequer, Secretary of Defense); this, despite widely held views of him as the logical successor to James Callaghan, whom Thatcher had beaten to become Prime Minister in 1979. The Labour Party itself would remain locked out of power until 1997, when Tony Blair finally broke the drought.
So what stopped Healey from becoming Prime Minister, or at least, Labour's next opposition leader? Most historians cite his apparent inability or unwillingness to tone down his combative speaking style, and reach out beyond those already agreed with it, as the decisive factors.
A man who zigzags between vowing to "squeeze property speculators until the pips squeak" -- as he did, in 1974, in pressing for a wealth tax -- to negotiating a bailout from the International Monetary Fund that triggered deep, divisive budget cuts, as they did in 1976, is unlikely to inspire great public confidence.
It's not hard to imagine Healey's critics shuddering whenever he put himself forward for the big jobs; to paraphrase Elvis Costello, they had seen the movie, and it did not move them. Yet Healey's essential advice ("stop digging") still stands, even if he didn't follow it himself, and Lightfoot would do well study it, even though she doesn't seem capable of major introspection, as we'll see.
<"Hey, guys, I told you to stop
dragging out those shovels..."
Denis Healey stares down
his political future with a smile: April 1974>
<Rob Mieremet, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons>
<ii.>
Where Healey and his party dug themselves a hole, by comparison, Lightfoot finds herself staring out of a trench. For Chicago's newly-minted mayor, the major priority is avoiding an outright defeat in Tuesday's elections. If Lightfoot somehow avoids a first round knockout, she and the other top vote getter proceed to a runoff in April.
With nine candidates crowding the ballot, a runoff seems more likely than not, though polls suggest a fair amount of volatility. A recent WLS-TV poll has former Chicago school superintendent Paul Vallas on top (22.1%), followed by Lightfoot (17.1%), and Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson (16.1%). Congressman Chuy Garcia, the onetime front-runner, now languishes in fourth (13.8%), followed by wealthy businessman Willie Wilson (11.8%). All others poll in single digits.
As WLS notes, two other figures carry greater concerns for the mayor's second term prospects. One has Vallas crushing Lightfoot in a runoff by 19 points (49.3-30.1%). The other are the 54% of those who responded claim they won't vote for her, no matter what. It's a remarkable reversal of fortune for someone who surfed a tidal wave of goodwill to become the Windy City's first openly gay, second female, and third African-American mayor in 2019.
Lightfoot's victory teased the promise of a major break from the top-down, foul-mouthed leadership of her predecessor, Rahm Emanuel -- who'd abandoned plans to seek a third term, rather than risk a humiliating defeat from the voters he'd spent eight years antagonizing. But that's exactly not how things have worked out.
<"Just Sit Here In Awe..."
The Reckoner>
<iii.>
So why, exactly, is Lightfoot fighting for her political life, a mere four years after she arrived? One reason? Combativeness. At various times, she's clashed -- heatedly, and repeatedly -- with the City Council, the media, the teachers' union, and progressives who once saw her as their best hope for breaking with the Windy City's notoriously top-down, get-along, go-along, ring-kissing political culture.
Her bleep-bleeped belittlements range from succinct blasts ("You're 100% full of shit"), to unhinged serial rants ("My dick is bigger than yours and the Italians, I have the biggest dick in Chicago"). At best, they sound like the outbursts of a former federal prosecutor who was never ready for prime time; at worst, they suggest someone who seems a few sandwiches shy of a picnic, as Healey might say, perhaps.
In These Times (see link below) paints a compelling portrait of an insecure, domineering authoritarian who brooks no dissent, and never hesitates to hurl the considerable weight of her office against all who question her. As someone who's often experienced these tactics myself, this former supporter's quote speaks volumes:
“I thought she’d govern like she campaigned, and we didn’t get that. We got a very dictatorial style of governing, just like we did with Rahm, and it’s disappointing."
<"Stop Digging, Stop Digging":
Take II/The Reckoner>
<iv.>
Abrasive or not, though, Lori Lightfoot's brittle, rough-edged governance isn't the only reason that she's fighting to keep her job. Critics also cite her willingness to continue pouring Tax Increment Funds (TIF) -- a program that's meant to serve blighted areas -- toward subsidizing the pet development priorities of Chicago's wealthy elite.
As proof, look no further than the $6 billion Lincoln Yards project, an initiative that Lightfoot once blasted Emanuel for wanting to fast-track. Now, of course, she's all for it. It's the kind of U-turn that prompts those who didn't trust her in 2019 to remind voters why all over again, as Saqib Bhatti, co-executive director at the Action Center on Race & the Economy, tells In These Times:
“Lightfoot’s been an unmitigated disaster — I think under her we’ve seen a continuation of the failed policies of Emanuel and [former Mayor Richard M.] Daley, but with even less charm somehow. She’s continued putting major corporations and the wealthy above the needs of poor Black and brown folks in Chicago.”
None of those developments should surprise anybody. I saw the chickens roosting during my brief tenure in the late 1990s, when the abuses of TIF funds were just beginning to gather steam under Mayor Daley.
Entire neighborhoods were left to rot, because they were filled with average (read: mostly minority) people who didn't have "the juice" to squeeze City Hall for their fair share of its spoils. No one was in their corner, so that was that.
The social inequities that seemed like a mere gap when I arrived, then began to yawning into a chasm. The Ed Burkes and Vrdolyaks kept making out, like the bandits they always were, as they remained the sun around which the city's clannish political culture orbited. They paid less of their "fair share" than ever, while the rest of us paid more and more, and more and more -- fees, penalties, permits, and so on. You name it, they raked it in.
Hence, that's why I'm saying little, for now, about the other major issue in the race, which has done so much to sour Chicagoans on Lightfoot: crime, and what to do about it. It's an issue that's ripe for demagoguery, and this race is no exception. But based on what I saw, putting the proverbial cop on every corner won't ever be enough, which is the major theme of Vallas's campaign.
However, as Johnson has repeatedly pointed out, the criminal justice system keeps on growing by leaps and bounds -- in terms of its budget, and payroll -- not to mention how many unfortunates wind up shuffled off to new residencies at the nearest gray bar hotel. Yet, if the polls tell us anything, Chicagoans have never felt less positive about their city, and its future.
<"Hey, guys? Guys? I don't see any light in here,
and it looks like an awfully steep climb to the top.
Can somebody give me a hand?">
<Coda>
Yet with so many people continuing to struggle for basic needs that City Hall continues to ignore, I remain deeply skeptical that locking them all up -- or slapping heftier fines, or jacking up the taxes they already can't afford -- will make any real difference.
Admittedly, Lightfoot has faced major hurdles, ranging from financial, to the fallout of COVID-19, homelesness, and fierce anti-cop apathy, fueled by incidents like George Floyd's murder...to name a few. Yet, like her unfortunate '70s counterpart, Lightfoot has responded by simply doubling down, staring straight ahead, and continuing to dig.
Chicagoans may well decide that this type of behavior is reason enough to send Lightfoot off to Chicago's One-Term Hall of Fame (Michael Bilandic, 1979; Jane Byrne, 1983; Eugene Sawyer, 1989), because they see her as the kind of leader that they don't want.
Whether they get the kind of leadership they so desperately need, however, remains very much an open question, with no easy answer in sight. Whoever wins the job would do well to heed a saying attributed to another cast-off British Prime Minister, Edward Heath: "A week is a long time in politics." --The Reckoner
<UPDATE #1(10:58 p.m., 2/28>
Well, Lightfoot now has a new entry on her resume: first incumbent mayor in 40 years to lose a re-election bid. Jane Byrne was the last incumbent mayor to fall shy of a second term, in 1983.
Unofficial returns posted by 9 p.m. showed Paul Vallas, as expected, finishing with roughly 36% of the vote, well ahead of the second place finisher, Brandon Johnson, who garnered 20%, followed by Lightfoot (16%), Garcia (14%), and Wilson (9%). The remaining candidates netted five percent, combined, between them.
As I already stated, whatever happens in the April 4 runoff won't paper over the chasm-sized cracks in the system. I'm guessing that Johnson's primary bloc of voters, young progressives, are tired of a top-down culture that's only served up diminishing returns, for the average person.
Will there be enough of them to overcome the (mostly) white ethnic voters, who presumably read Vallas's less than subtle appeals of "taking back our city" (emphasis: mine) as sufficient affirmation of their us-against-them aggrievement, and reasonable enough confirmation of the easy answers that his campaign trots out?
Time will tell, but again, I can't get the essential point out of my head. Chicago is a hard place to govern, at the best times. Now imagine the challenge, after three decades of predatory politicking, much of it driven mainly by the swells who continue to make ever-spiraling piles of money, even as the deluge eddies and swirls around them. Nothing about tonight changes my feelings. As Mr. Costello said -- "I've seen the movie, and it does not move me." --The Reckoner
<UPDATE #2: 10:55 p.m., Tuesday, April 4>
Well, the fairy dust has finally settled on the hullabaloo that surrounded the notion of a Johnson victory (or, as police union head John Catanza so infamously stated, there would be "blood in the streets" if his preferred choice, Vallas, lost the race -- why does anybody still cling to the idea of these reactionary SOBs ever being our allies, exactly?).
About two hours minutes ago, the Associated Press called the race for Johnson. With 99% of the vote counted, the AP tally showed 285,773 votes for Johnson (51.4%), to 269.951 for Vallas (48.6%). Though it's hardly a landslide, I think the results are decisive enough.
Apparently, Chicagoans didn't fall for Vallas's pitch that putting the proverbial cop on every corner would make them feel safer, and all their problems -- including the city's gaping social inequities -- magically disappear.
Johnson's victory feels doubly appropriate, for two reasons. First, it falls on the anniversary of Martin Luther KIng's assassination, and second, it coincides with the 40th anniversary of the late Harold Washington's election as the Windy City's first Black mayor, after weathering one of the most viciously racist campaigns in my own memory (courtesy of the late Bernard Epton).
The most critical takeaway, as far as I'm concerned, is a concept that the mainstream media and its status quo allies stubbornly refuse to accept,namely, that people -- particularly those who fall south of 40, as in, non-Baby Boomer elite -- are tired of business as usual politics, and a system that never stops gaming them.
The other big takeaway is that when you swing for the fences, you might just surprise yourself. That's also true of tonight's other big result, the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, where liberal leaning Janet Protasiewciz crushed a challenge by Daniel Kelly who vaulted to national notoriety by meeting with the Badger State's election deniers in 2020, as they plotted to overturn Biden's presidential win. That's only one of many shortcomings you'll find in searching his name via Google, if you care to do it. (But you might need a cold shower when you finish.)
For too long, orthodox liberals have meekly embraced the politics of mere transactionalism -- always leave those who support you holding out, and hungry forever; never shoot for the moon, when you can do the bare minimum -- and the mere avoidance of total catastrophe as the only worthwhile policy goal worth embracing.
But politicians like Johnson have other ideas, as he told Yahoo News (see newly added link below): "Democrats have been in charge of Chicago for a century. Only they are not the right Democrats, according to Johnson, who says past mayors have been beholden either to the city’s notorious Daley family political machine.
"Or they always looked to the national establishment, like Rahm Emanuel, Barack Obama’s former chief of staff. Maybe they were combative loners like Lightfoot, finding few friends on either right or left.
"Republicans and Democrats have collaborated to move austerity budgets," Johnson told Yahoo News.
Obviously, questions remain whether Johnson, as another newcomer, can move the needle in one of the nation's most notorious pay-to-play political cultures, but I'm cautiously optimistic. His County Commission background makes him a better fit for the office than Lightfoot's unblinking authoritarian style ever did, or Valla's sly winks to the wealthy and far right forces that tried to buy the seat on his behalf.
Unlike his predecessor, Johnson will enter City Hall with a strong knowledge of where the bodies are buried, so to speak, which determines how things get done. Whether he can raise enough money for his agenda through six new taxes, as he proposes, remains to be seen.
Clearly, though, the chance to strike up a different sort of politics spoke loudly and clearly in both of these races. Time will tell if the winners are up to the challenge, but tonight, at least, I'm saying, bravo, Chicago, and bravissimo, Wisconsin. Onward and upward! I've seen that movie, and it truly does move me. --The Reckoner
LInks To Go (Hurry, Hurry, Before
They Price You Out Of Paradise):
Chicago Sun-Times:
After Tight Race For Mayor,
Black Political Establishment May Face A Reckoning:
https://chicago.suntimes.com/elections/2023/4/4/23670457/mayoral-race-brandon-johnson-black-political-leaders-city-council-politics-natalie-moore-column
Governing.com
Lori Lightfoot Looks
Like A One-Term Mayor:
https://www.governing.com/now/chicagos-lori-lightfoot-looks-like-a-one-term-mayor
In These Times
Why Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot
Is Facing An Uphill Battle For Re-Election:
https://inthesetimes.com/article/chicago-mayor-lori-lightfoot-chuy-garcia-brandon-johnson-paul-vallas-election
WBEZ
Chicago Voters Feel Unsafe,
Unhappy With Police Relations:
https://www.wbez.org/stories/poll-crime-tops-chicago-voters-issues-this-mayoral-election/d883f428-d268-4c39-9a9d-6aa13566c447
Yahoo News: Brandon Johnson
Could Be A National Progressive Star:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/brandon-johnson-chicago-mayor-paul-vallas-213142198.html
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