I received my ballot on Saturday and still have no idea who to vote for. I enthusiastically voted for Rahm last time, but this election features so many candidates. There’s no doubt they’ll be a run off as the first election is basically serving as a primary.
Mayor of Chicago has got to rival Governor of Illinois for the title of most thankless job in the country. “Come be the mayor of a city that’s careening towards bankruptcy and notorious for sky-high crime, corruption, and racial strife. Taxes are already too high and people with money are fleeing for greener pastures. And you’ll surely be blamed for anything that goes wrong during the next four years.” I’m surprised anyone’s running.
Are you a Chicagoan? Got any non-right wing cites?
Want to know what’s wrong with Chicago? Ask anyone who doesn’t live there, and they’ll eagerly tell you.
Yawn
Anyway, I already voted for Paul Vallas. He is the only one who has released a genuinely realistic plan to deal with the pension crisis (Capitol Fax.com - Your Illinois News Radar » RNUG: Vallas’ plan “appears to make Chicago’s pension problem manageable”), he doesn’t pander for votes, and he has never been ethically compromised or caught up in scandals. I was also inclined towards Lori Lightfoot, but I mailed in my ballot before the Sun-Times endorsement and assumed Vallas was more likely to make the runoff. Now it seems Lightfoot has a real shot, though I am satisfied with my vote for Vallas.
In the runoff I will vote for literally anyone who makes it on to the ballot against Preckwinkle.
As of now, I’m leaning Daley, but anyone but Preckwinkle. Her sales tax flip flop along with ramming through the soda tax makes her a definite No with me.
Good Lord, that’s a lot of candidates. Am I the only one wondering what’s going on with Robert Fioretti’s hair?
As a non-Chicagoan, let me ask the locals: what are the hot topics this election?
Actually, city council corruption seems to be the issue that is dominating the election. Long-time alderman Ed Burke is under investigation by the FBI and had his offices raided recently, TWICE. Turns out another longtime alderman, Daniel Solis, has been moonlighting as an FBI informant for the past few years and wearing a wire, and that’s how Burke got in trouble. He was trying to shake down Burger King for a campaign donation in exchange for allowing a new drive-through. A lot of other aldermen also seem to be worried that Solis may have ratted on them too, and on top of that there are also the usual low-level bizarre ethical lapses among alderman… like Proco Joe Moreno filing a false police report saying his car was stolen, causing his mistress to get arrested driving the car he lent her, which she proved he gave her by sharing their steamy text messages with the media.
Anyway, obviously all the candidates have some connection with the various aldercreatures on the city council, and that has put a wrench in everyone’s campaigns. Preckwinkle hired Burke’s son for a 100k-per-year job for which he was not qualifed for and he never showed up to work anyway. Everyone is compromised by campaign donations, especially Susana Mendoza, who is returning donations and cancelling fundraisers weekly (She is also Moreno’s ex-girfriend, awkward). The incestual side of Chicago politics, where everyone is connected and deals are being made in shadows constantly has been on display for the past few months, and most people are sickened by it. Now even the mayoral candidates are falling over themselves attacking the city council, while floating ideas like shrinking it down from 50 to 15, and eliminating the aldermanic veto over zoning and development (about damn time). It seems now that almost all the candidates support that kind of reform, except for Preckwinkle who knows her power comes from her aldermanic endorsements.
As a result of this mess, “Undecided” is leading in the polls, and following way behind there is a 4-6 way statistical tie for 2nd place, with most candidates getting 12-8% support. It’s a shitshow. Preckwinkle, however, is practically guaranteed a spot in the runoff, as the unions and aldermen will get out the vote for her. It basically has been a fight for 2nd place. For the longest time it was thought Susana Mendoza would make it in and handily beat Preckwinkle, but she has been badly damaged by the city council stuff. It’s a shame, because she was my favorite of the machine candidates. But who knows- literally anyone can make it into the runoff with the field this divided and with the Sun-Times making such a surprise endorsement of Lori Lightfoot. My guess is the Trib endorses Vallas, though Chico or Mendoza wouldn’t surprise me either.
As someone who seems to care about fiscal policy, why on earth would you vote for someone who pushed his brother hard to ram through the disasterous parking meter sell-off, and who still supports the deal to this day?
Is '42 the year you were born?
I still don’t have a clue who I’m voting for. I’m leaning towards Lightfoot, but I really haven’t done enough research yet. Definitely no to Daley or Preckwinkle. I also don’t know who to vote for Alderman since Pewar had to go and make up some stupid term limit rule.
This resource seems to have been helpful to a lot of voters this past few weeks. Of course, everyone who is running is basically a democrat, so it’s like choosing between different flavors of vanilla. Do you want to try the 4 brands of machine vanilla bean, or go with the more reform-flavored french vanilla options? Beware, as some of those have traces of moonbattery and/or nuttiness.
As an aside, just like every other Chicago kid in the 90s I had Paul Vallas’ name on my school lunch card, so he was actually the first politician that I’ve ever heard of. I knew who he was even before I knew who Mayor Daley or the president was. It felt kind of weirdly sentimental voting for him all these years later.
Preckwinkle is a sad case. In her City Council days, she was a legitimate progressive and reformer. The Tribune gave her a rousing endorsement for Cook County board president in 2010:
Nowadays, she’s arguably even more of a corrupt Machine politico-creature than Daley is. Good buddies with such slimeballs as Joe Berrios and Ed Burke. If the runoff is between Preckwinkle and Daley, then God help this city, because that’s an absolutely awful choice.
Personally, I’m still torn between Lightfoot and Vallas. Received my ballot but I’m waiting for the Trib to endorse so I can take that into consideration. I’d be happy with either of them, honestly, but the way the runoff works I have to be tactical with my choice.
Nope, I was born far after 1942, not even sure how I picked my user name, it goes back to something I used to use either on AOL or one of the other old dial up services.
I’m still undecided now, Preckwinkle must be stopped, she’s got the Chicago Teachers Union endorsement so I’m pretty sure she’ll make it to the run off. Maybe I’m not watching as much news as I did back in 2015, but I just don’t see the type of coverage of this race that I did then. I guess Trump and national politics has sucked all the air out of the room. I probably see more signs for Tom Tunney for alderman than I do for mayoral candidates.
I live in the suburbs on the Indiana side. As for cites, I’m not sure why you would ask since nothing I said is controversial. City finances and debt, crime rates, and outflow of people can all be verified from any decent source. As for corruption, see post by pjacks above.
I’m a big fan of Ballotpedia’s election breakdowns - they often have useful summaries of who is who, and who is funding them. Here’s their Chicago 2019 page.
There is, in fact, quite a lot of advertising for the better-funded candidates (primarily Daley, Chico, Preckwinkle, and Mendoza) on the local TV stations, especially during the news.
We need to push for ranked choice voting. The fact that the mayoral race is going to come down to two people who will get maybe 15% of the vote each in first vote is ridiculous.
Lori Lightfoot, btw, is the only candidate that supports ranked choice voting, for what it’s worth.
I’d strongly support ranked choice voting, and I realize that might work against me at times. I was very pro-Rahm last election but I know plenty of people who were anyone but Rahm.
This election, I’m anyone but Preckwinkle.
Trib endorses Daley.
Son of the Boss. Brother of the Boss. Long live the new Boss.
Such a sad joke.
Daley is still 1000 times better than Preckwinkle. Looks like my decision has been made.