There were plenty of reasons which likely went into Emanuel’s decision. Chicago faces deep and systemic economic and racial inequality, which manifests itself at least in part in an unacceptably high murder rate in certain areas of the city. The Police Department faces criticism for brutality, most notably in the shooting of Laquan McDonald by Officer Jason Van Dyke. The mayor closed 50 Chicago Public Schools, and half of the city run mental health clinics, while facing near constant criticism from the Chicago Teachers Union. And the possibility of financial disaster looms on the horizon for Chicago, as the city faces a massive public employee pension debt. Recent protests have called for Emanuel to step down as mayor, and I wonder if this had any effect on his decision.
I started this thread because I am a Chicago resident who is interested in hearing the thoughts, opinions, and speculation of others. Who is likely to replace Emanuel? Will Emanuel run for state-wide or national office, or is his political career over? Is Chicago better or worse off with his decision? How will the next mayor have to address the serious issues that Chicago faces?
The filing deadline is at the end of November. There’s already about a dozen candidates, but I’m guessing a lot more are going to jump in over the next couple months with Rahm out of the way.
Glad to see Rahm go. Even though I appreciated that he stood up to Trump in regards to Chicago’s Sanctuary City status, there is not much else that I like about him.
Worth a reread, imo, our thread about the Chicago 2015 mayoral election:
Rahm has been a great mayor and I’m sorry to see him go. Perhaps he’ll have a role in a Democratic cabinet after 2020.
As of now, it looks like a huge field, although I expect some of the silly activists to drop out.
It’s still early, but if former governor Pat Quinn is serious about running, I’d strongly consider supporting him. I’m quite glad Karen Lewis won’t be running, although I wish her the best of health.
Lol, I expect so. Quinn has been pretty desperate to get back in office. But, I’d be fine with him as mayor. I did vote for Quinn for attorney general in the Democratic primary.
This was really, really disappointing news. Rahm made a lot of unpopular, necessary decisions after he inherited a colossal mess from Daley, and he did about as well as possible. Yes, he had a lot of missteps and I voted for his opponent last time, but he pulled the city from the brink of turning into Detroit at least.
Meanwhile, the current crop of mayoral candidates look like a slate out of a post-Soviet failed state. Just pathetic. Lori Lightfoot is the only one who isn’t a crook and/or hilariously inexperienced, which means she’ll get about 10% of the vote at most.
We’re screwed unless the rumors about Quinn, Preckwinkle or Jarrett running pan out.
I do think the candidate crop will improve now that they don’t have Rahm the bogeyman any longer. Many of those that were ‘running’ were just looking for a platform for open season on Rahm.
The first name that came to mind for a potential run was Scott Waguespack.
One thing that political observers have pointed out is that there is currently no Latino candidate in the race for mayor. I suspect this is going to change at some point over the next few days.
Chuy Garcia and Luis Guiterrez have been mentioned above, and I imagine Gary Chico, Miguel Del Valle, Susana Mendoza, and Ricardo Munoz are also considering running.
I don’t see why Chuy would run for mayor again. He won’t even be through his first full term in Congress, and that plum gig will likely be his until he retires.
Garcia won’t run for mayor again. He has to know that a lot of his support was the ‘Not Rahm’ vote. The Illinois 4th congressional district is gerrymandered to be 75% Hispanic. That’s a far easier gig that dealing with the numerous groups that make up Chicago.
As someone who lived in the Detroit area in the 1970’s, don’t be too sure Chicago isn’t sliding down the same razor blade. It sure looks to me like Chicago is still headed down the toilet.
Not too sure about the others, but the only good thing I can see about Preckwinkle is that she’s not Jon Stroger, Jr. Oh, that, and The Cook County beverage tax benefited me, but unfortunately for her constituents, those who benefited were not in Cook County.
I don’t necessarily disagree with you, but if you just compare Chicago’s financial situation when Daley left to now, there was real, positive progress made. The state is now in a more dire position than the city even, when the opposite was true just a few years ago. Also, Rahm attracted a lot of tech companies to Chicago, which created a new taxbase for years to come.
The uncertainty of who comes next is terrifying. It’s so easy to imagine it will be some moron who promises spending increases to pander to people, and who won’t mention a thing about our financial cliff besides promises of taxing the rich (Like Pritzker is doing statewide). All the progress the city had made could vanish next year.
Yeah the beverage tax was moronic, more for its design and implementation than anything else, but it at least showed Preckwinkle isn’t afraid of making tough, unpopular decisions to combat what she at least understands is a budget crisis. I was just using her as an example of a Chicago pol who isn’t wholesale corrupt or a joke… That’s the best we could hope for.
Detroit’s problem was that they had all their eggs in the automotive basket, and when that declined, the city lost many of its jobs. Chicago has a much more diversified economy; its budget problems related to pensions are real and large, but it’s a very different problem to what Detroit faced.