January 12, 2011
BRAUN'S "CONSENSUS" PICK INSURES EMANUEL MAYORAL WIN

ANALYSIS & OPINION BY RUSS STEWART

You read it here first: The winner of the 2011 Chicago mayoral election is . . . Barack Obama.

Say what? Another winner is . . . U.S. Representative Jesse Jackson Jr.

As part of this column's periodic UCPT (Understanding Chicago Politics Test), here's a multiple-choice question. If Obama wants to guarantee that his former chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, is elected mayor, he will:

(a) Publicly endorse Emanuel, thereby generating considerable enmity within Chicago's black community.

(b) Have his agents and allies employ Machiavellian manipulation to ensure that the consensus black candidate is the most flawed and the least electable.

(c) Hope and pray.

If you answered (b), you're a political genius. The three black mayoral contenders -- James Meeks, Danny Davis and Carol Moseley Braun -- spent months bickering and importuning each other to quit the race so as to have a consensus choice. All were resistant. Then, suddenly, Meeks and Davis folded, leaving the weakest and most unelectable. Credit the White House. And, according to a source, Jackson also was instrumental in pressuring Davis, his congressional colleague, out of the race.

The "Moseley Braun Meltdown" has already commenced, with her release of income tax returns showing that in one year she claimed losses that allowed her to pay no federal income taxes and that she was tardy on her property taxes. Braun was Illinois' one-term U.S. senator from 1993 to 1999, and most voters only vaguely remember her arrogance, incompetence and utter dysfunction. By Feb. 22, Chicagoans' memory will be refreshed, and she will be soundly rejected, as she was in 1998. In fact, Emanuel may get up to a third of the black vote, and Braun will get less than 10 percent of the white and Hispanic vote.

The only question: Will Emanuel get more than 50 percent of the total vote, enabling him to win without an April 5 runoff?

Another multiple-choice query. The black politician who benefits most from a Braun thrashing and an Emanuel victory is:

(a) Jesse Jackson Jr. (b) Toni Preckwinkle (c) Davis and Meeks

The answer is obvious. The credibility of Davis and Meeks was tarnished by their lack of fortitude. At age 69, this was Davis's last chance. Meeks grandly proclaimed that Chicago "will never see things improve" until it has a black mayor. Newly installed Cook County Board President Preckwinkle is focusing on her job, not on a future mayoral run. That leaves "Triple J". With a white mayor, Jackson can re-emerge as Chicago's "Great Black Hope" -- the likeliest future African-American City Hall occupant.

Here are four mini-columns, analyzing the mayoral race:

*An Emanuel victory is critical to Obama's 2012 re-election. To be sure, Obama will not lose Illinois and its 20 electoral votes next year. Obama carried the city in 2008 by a breathtaking 781,611-vote margin, racking up 85.4 percent of the vote. By comparison, Democrat John Kerry won Chicago by 651,440 votes in 2004, and Al Gore won by 601,931 votes in 2000. As a liberal black Chicagoan with "change we need" appeal to whites and Hispanic voters, Obama's hometown appeal was awesome. Obama won Illinois with a plurality of 1,388,169 votes, getting 61.9 percent of the total cast.

Republican gains nationwide, particularly in rural areas, make Obama exceedingly dependent on urban areas, particularly major cities with large minority populations. The president's liberalism has antagonized rural and suburban voters.

In the 2010 governor's race, Democrat Pat Quinn won Chicago by 399,533 votes, enabling him to eke out a statewide victory of 19,000 votes. The Democrats' plans raise hike the state individual and corporate tax rates will further estrange those who aren't minorities, don't work for the government, and don't live in Cook County.

Even if the economy further deteriorates, Chicago's nearly monolithic black vote will ensure an Obama statewide victory, as it did for Quinn, but "Team Obama" doesn't want to sweat Illinois and needlessly squander money that would be more profitably spent elsewhere.

Obama requires a Chicago mayor who can deliver white and Hispanic votes. That means Emanuel. Braun, as mayor, would deliver only chaos and discord.

* Unions are the new Chicago Democratic machine. The era of the ubiquitous precinct captain is over. Chicago job holders know that they can't be compelled to do political work and that they won't get a promotion even if they do. Federal convictions have eviscerated the Hispanic Democratic Organization and other pro-Rich Daley entities that deployed hundreds of city workers into certain wards to aid pro-Daley aldermen in 1999, 2003 and 2007.

With Daley's retirement, his City Council loyalists are adrift. It's suddenly a level playing field.

But enter the unions, particularly the Service Employees International Union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the Teamsters Union, which represent tens thousands of public sector employees. In the state bureaucracy, 96 percent of all employees are unionized. The unions have money and manpower. The SEIU donated almost $3 million to Quinn. When Illinois Senate President John Cullerton needed precinct canvassers to rescue his endangered incumbents in 2010, the unions came to the rescue.

In the Northwest Side 10th Illinois Senate District race between Democrat John Mulroe and Republican Brian Doherty, any given weekend would see 50-plus union member "volunteers" on the street for Mulroe. In the 2007 Chicago aldermanic election, the unions spent more than $1 million to defeat several pro-Walmart incumbents.

Chicago had a projected $654.7 million deficit for fiscal year 2011, which Daley "cured" by raiding tax increment financing district funds and the parking meter and Skyway reserves, getting $32 million in union concessions, cutting 280 jobs and refinancing city debt. The budget is $6.15 billion. Daley has constantly quarreled with the city's police and fire unions, and he has kept SEIU, AFSCME and the Teamsters under this thumb. The unions rarely try to protect their workers in city job disputes.

As mayor, Emanuel will capitulate to, not control the public sector unions. They are his power base. They will be the Emanuel/Obama machine's future manpower. In the looming 2012 budget crisis, expect Mayor Emanuel to eschew any budget cuts or layoffs. Tax hikes will be onerous and obligatory.

* Dark days lie ahead for Jesse. Jackson confronts the upcoming Rod Blagojevich retrial, commencing in April, with great trepidation. He will be a witness. The media have reported that Jackson offered to raise $5 million personally and $1 million through the Asian Indian community in funds for the now-impeached governor in exchange for appointment in December of 2008 to Obama's Illinois U.S. Senate seat. Another report has two Indian Jackson allies pledging to raise $6 million.

Jackson denies the allegations, but he is petrified that those agents will testify that he authorized the offer, making him a possible co-conspirator or perjurer. The U.S. Department of Justice asked a U.S. House committee not to pursue their investigation of Jackson, as the department already was doing so.

One of those businessmen revealed in September that he paid to fly a female "social acquaintance" to Chicago twice in 2008. Jackson has since apologized for his marital infidelity. In 2 years, Jackson has withered from a black power broker capable of getting his wife elected as alderman and delivering black votes to judicial candidates to a political pariah. But time dims memories, and Jackson has more than $2 million in his campaign account.

Should his credibility survive the April trial, Jackson, age 45, has adequate time to rehabilitate his reputation and await a mayoral opportunity in 2017 or 2021, but only if Emanuel is mayor. Were Braun to be elected, the city would be seized by racial polarity, convulsed with dysfunction, and paralyzed with political bickering. One term of Braun would eradicate black mayoral hopes for a generation.

* Gery Chico takes a hit. One of the collateral effects of Braun's "victory" is the eclipse of Chico's candidacy. Chico is a former Daley chief of staff who also has served as the Chicago Public Schools Board of Trustees president, the Chicago Park District Board of Commissioners president and the City Colleges of Chicago president. He is a lawyer and a lobbyist, of Greek, Mexican heritage and Lithuanian, and he brims with energy and ideas. However, Hispanics constitute just over 10 percent of the vote, so Chico must appeal to white voters.

In a race featuring six or more credible candidates, with a runoff assured, many white voters would pick Chico over Emanuel, but now that Emanuel has emerged as the stop Braun candidate, a vote for Chico is a risky proposition.

In 2004 Chico ran for U.S. senator in the Democratic primary and received a paltry 29,414 votes (6.4 percent of the total). The winner was Obama, who had 301,199 votes, or 66.5 percent of the vote. Chico won a plurality in six Hispanic-majority wards, but he finished fourth or fifth in the predominantly white wards, and he barely registered in the black-majority wards. To win this election, Chico needs half the white vote, which won't happen.

The outlook: At present, Chicagoans are aware of the mayoral contest, but not engaged. No candidate has elicited any great fervor. Emanuel is polling near 40 percent, and everybody else is under 10 percent.

Turnout is projected to be around 600,000 -- 200,000 more than in 2007 -- with 240,000 votes from the black wards, 300,000 from the white wards and 60,000 from the Hispanic wards. If Emanuel gets 80 percent of the white vote (240,000) and 20 to 30 percent of the black vote (48,000 to 72,000), he wins.