May 28, 2014
EMANUEL BASELESS, BUT NOT CLUELESS, IN 2015 RACE

ANALYSIS & OPINION BY RUSS STEWART

by RUSS STEWART

A politician without an identifiable, dependable and deliverable base, whether it be geographic, racial, ideological or demographic, is like a motor vehicle without wheels. He or she is going nowhere.

That’s Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s predicament as the 2015 Chicago municipal election looms ever closer. The mayor has no wheels.

Emanuel has no cognizable political base. To be sure he has a humungous donor base, much of it attributable his brother’s Hollywood connections, and the mayor’s longstanding ties to Barack Obama, and Bill and Hillary Clinton, and their national fundraising networks Keeping their pal Rahm as Chicago’s mayor is certainly a top Clinton priority. As of March 31, Emanuel had $7,391,991 on-hand in his campaign account. He will raise another $4-6 million.

And, to be sure, the mayor has a couple of beach-heads: The Jewish vote, which is concentrated along the Lakefront, West Rogers Park, and Hyde Park, but which amounts to barely five percent of the citywide vote. The North Side Ravenswood/47th Ward/40th Ward area, where the mayor resides, and where Alderman Pat O’Connor (40th), his council floor leader, dominates. That’s it.

Emanuel’s problems can be succinctly summarized.

First, he is neither well-liked nor popular. A recent Chicago Sun-Times poll gave him an embarrassing 29 percent in a 2015 multi-candidate field which included three unannounced candidates -- county board president Toni Preckwinkle, Chicago Teachers’ Union (CTU) president Karen Lewis, Alderman Bob Fioretti (2nd) -- and one announced candidate, Robert Shaw. Preckwinkle, Lewis and Shaw are black.

Even Emanuel’s predecessor, Rich Daley, who served from 1989 to 2011, and who is now much-maligned for his kick-the-can-down-the-road governing style, which precipitated the current pension crisis, never had those dismal polling numbers. When 71 percent of the voters don’t want you, or don’t know if they want you, it’s panic time.

Second, Emanuel has no signature achievements: no revenue-producing casino, no diminution in gun violence, no startling spike in school performance, no spurt of commercial construction. Unemployment in Illinois is 7.8 percent, one of the highest in the nation. What is his rationale for another term?

A politician often benefits from the enemies he has made, since the enemies of one’s enemies are one’s friends. Closing schools, prompting a strike by rejecting CTU demands, backing charter schools, resisting police and fire wage-hike demands, and advocating pension reforms made only enemies, not friends. And gang violence, manifested by drive-by killings, persists.

Without a doubt, Chicagoans view Emanuel as a clever, competent mayor, or, perhaps more accurately, not as bumbling, ineffectual or inept. But they also perceive him as arrogant, egotistical and ambitious. Emanuel wants it his way, all the time. There is no doubt that Emanuel sees the mayoralty as a steppingstone to higher office, such as governor or president, not as a career capstone (like Daley).

To persevere, Emanuel must get re-elected in 2015. And, to get re-elected, he must be sufficiently clever to temporarily solve the city’s pension crisis, which is required by state law. The city’s pension deficit is $27.5 billion. Six funds must be replenished by $590 million in 2015. Emanuel has proposed a $250 million property tax increase over five years, or $50 million annually, for a total of $750 million in property tax collections through 2020.

That option is unacceptable to both taxpayers and city aldermen.

Third, Emanuel has no proverbial “clout” with the aldermen who will have to vote to hike taxes, although there is little doubt that he can and will strong-arm 28 to vote in favor. At most, two or three of the council’s 19 black aldermen will get some anti-tax blowback, as might some of the 8 Hispanics. In the minority wards, where renters exceed far homeowners, the opprobrium is minimal. “Let the rich whites pay,” will be the refrain. There are 23 white aldermen, and at least 12-15 will go on record to cover their butts, and oppose any tax levy hike.

At the onset of the Emanuel Administration, there was a palpable “fear factor” among the white aldermen: If you defy the mayor, he will have the cash to beat you in 2015. That’s totally dissipated. 2015 will not be a coronation for King Rahm, wherein he can purge recalcitrant aldermen. It will be a tough gauntlet, with a runoff, and millions spent on negative ads. Opposing the mayor, as Alderman John Arena (45th) has demonstrated, is a ticket to re-election, not oblivion.

As his polling demonstrates, Emanuel will have to go negative to win. He must make his putative runoff opponent less acceptable than he.

Fourth, the vaunted Machine is tottering, and won’t help Emanuel. Certain white-controlled ward organizations -- the 11th, 13th, 14th, 19th, and 23rd on the Southwest Side, and the 33th, 39th and 40th on the Northwest Side – can deliver for local candidates. But they won’t exert themselves if Emanuel’s unpopularity  jeopardizes their alderman.

As mayor, Emanuel has not played the “patronage game,” as did Daley, some of whose minions got indicted and convicted. Of course, under the Shakman decree, vast armies of city jobholders scouring precincts are now a memory. Absent jobs, and absent intimidating polling numbers, white aldermen (and committeemen) will be AWOL for Emanuel in 2015. Nobody wants to be tied to an unpopular, tax-hiking mayor. The key to the mayor’s re-election will be money, not manpower. Victory will be won on TV, not in the precincts.

Whatever money Emanuel raises will be used to re-elect him, not to purge any aldermen.

Fifth, Emmanuel’s 2015 theme will be less than uplifting or awe-inspiring: “They’re worse than I am.” Sounds like Governor Pat Quinn’s (D) 2014 campaign.

Only a few months ago, the Emanuel strategy was to secure over 50 percent in the Feb. 24, 2015 non-partisan primary, then use his leftover cash to target anti-Emanuel aldermen like Arena and Nick Sposato (36th) in the April runoffs. Now, his goal is to finish first on Feb. 24, as close to 50 percent as possible, and then go negative for the next five weeks.

The filing deadline for nominating petitions is Nov. 24, three weeks after the Nov. 4 election. Preckwinkle is Emanuel’s most formidable challenger. She has a sizeable base among blacks, and would appeal to white liberals and women. The presumption has been that Preckwinkle, a former Hyde Park alderman who has no  Republican opponent, and who has repeatedly declaimed any interest in running for mayor, would have insufficient time between Nov. 4 and Nov. 24 to gather the requisite 12,500 signatures (in reality, 30,000, just to be safe). “She (Preckwinkle) can get the petitions in a weekend,” said Joe Ziegler, a South Side black politician, who said that Emanuel would have “no appeal” to black voters if Preckwinkle ran.

The 2015 city budget must be submitted before December, so Emanuel will be on record, at filing time, as either favoring or avoiding a property tax hike.   

When incumbents run, it’s a referendum. Daley won solid victories in 1991, 1995, 1999, 2003 and 2007, increasing his percentages each cycle, even though his raw vote declined from 574,619 (1991) to 318,578 (2007). The vote for black candidates plunged from 412,864 (1991) to 128,993 (2007). The key to Daley’s longevity: (1) He carried his South Side white base with 85 percent, the Northwest Side with over 70 percent, and the Lakefront with over 60 percent. (2) He discouraged credible whites from running. (3) He pacified Hispanic aldermen with jobs and services, and didn’t irritate black voters. And (4) his most serious threats – congressmen Jesse Jackson Jr. and Luis Gutierrez – fell by the wayside. Daley also raised $5 million each cycle.

Daley’s 2011 retirement made it the first regular mayoral since 1947 without an incumbent on the ballot. (Special elections in 1977 and 1989 featured appointed incumbents.) Hence, 2011 was a choice, not a referendum. In typical Machine fashion, Daley announced his retirement late, and the “fix was in” for Emanuel. Against five foes, the most credible being Gery Chico, Emanuel amassed 321,773 votes (53 percent), to Chico’s 115,570 (20 percent). In Daley’s Southwest Side base, Chico beat Emanuel 35,691-26,578; in the white Northwest Side wards, Emanuel won 65,469-37,471. A tax hike will cut Emanuel’s vote in half.

In the black wards, where the most credible black was Carol Moseley Braun, Emanuel won 119,699-40,156. Against Preckwinkle or Lewis, the mayor’s vote collapses. On the Lakefront, where Jewish and liberal voters predominate, Emanuel won by a solid 68,180-12,821. And in the Hispanic wards, Emanuel won 22,774-20,366.

The outlook: The presumption is that Fioretti will defer to Lewis, and Lewis to Preckwinkle. They have the same fundraising base, and appeal to the same political base: minorities, unions and the University of Chicago intelligentsia. If all three ran, Emanuel would surely be kept under 50 percent, and face an April runoff against Preckwinkle. It would be a nasty, negative campaign, but most of the non-Emanuel voters would gravitate to Preckwinkle in the runoff, and black turnout would be massive.

Only if Preckwinkle opts out, and Emanuel faces either Lewis or Fioretti in a one-on-one, might he win – barely.