“IT’S OVER, IT’S OVER!!!”

2/22/11

One can say “Wow!” after seeing how quickly and thoroughly Rahm Emanuel dispatched Gery Chico, Miguel del Valle, Carol Braun, et. al. in today’s election. But that’s not all one can say. A few of the things that struck me as interesting:

--Gery Chico carried only one ward on the north side, the 41st, a cop and fire fighter ward that is represented by Alderman Brian Doherty, the only Republican on the nominally non-partisan City Council (until the new Council is seated; Mr. Doherty elected to seek a seat in the state senate last year rather than run for reelection this year. He lost that Senate race. Chances are he will be replaced by a Democrat in an election that looks headed for a run-off.) and that prides itself on being a suburb in the city.

--Chico predictably won the following south side wards:

10th
11th
12th
13th
14th
19th
23rd

Of these, the 10th, 12th, 13th, and 14th have Hispanic majorities. The 11th has a Hispanic plurality. In the 23rd, Hispanics and whites are almost exactly evenly represented. The only majority white wards that Chico carried were the 41st and the 19th. The remaining wards that Chico won, the 22nd and 25th, are west side heavily Hispanic wards. In all the aforementioned wards, the Hispanic population is almost entirely Mexican, as is Gery Chico on his father’s side.

--Carol Moseley Braun carried no (0) wards, which, of course, means that she carried no black wards. In fact, she did not receive even 25% of the vote in any ward, unless something changes between now (10:00 on election night) and the final tallying of the votes.

--Combining the last two bullet points, can we conclude racial voting is dead? Probably, but not quite.

--Note that Chico carried the 11th Ward, the historic bailiwick of the Daley family that is still represented in the Cook County Democratic Central Committee by John Daley. He didn’t carry it by much and didn’t get a majority (46.6% Chico, 42.2% Emanuel), but he carried it. Does this mean that the Daley family didn’t back Emanuel, as was commonly assumed? No. The Daley family has bigger fish to fry than the 11th Ward.

--Note that Chico carried the 19th Ward, another ward associated with Daley allies. Does this mean that the Daleys weren’t backing Emanuel? No. Again, the Daleys have bigger fish to fry than the 19th Ward, and the ward, as more than a few political types have told me, is somewhat fractured, at least as regards the mayoral election. The 19th Ward’s going for Chico does mean, however, that the observations I made in my earlier post today regarding today’s trip through the ward that my wife and I took were insightful and my intuition was pretty decent.

--I am very proud of the fact that the 19th Ward had the highest turnout in the city at 74.3% (as of about 10:00 on election night). No ward was even close; the next highest turnouts were in the 13th Ward (Mike Madigan) at 58.3% and in the 23rd Ward (Mike Zalewski) at 58.1%. The only other wards that exceeded 50% turnout were the 41st, 45th, and 47th. The 19th may be fractured, but the powers-that-be can still turn out the vote. Further, the committeeman in the ward, Matt O’Shea, is crushing his opposition in the race to succeed Ginger Rugai as alderman.

--I hate speeches and I’m not all that fond of Rahm Emanuel, but Mr. Emanuel made a great victory speech. He ran a great campaign and I hope and pray that he will be a great mayor. This wonderful city that many of us love is facing enormous problems and Mr. Emanuel will need those prayers and any other support he can get. Let’s hope that Mr. Emanuel is sincere in his desire to do well in what promises to be a very tough job and is not planning to use the Fifth Floor as a stepping stone to the presidency. Let’s hope, but let’s not be naïve, either.

--Gery Chico did miserably tonight, despite the backing of some very powerful committeemen. He showed very little strength north of Madison Street. He carried only two wards, 19 and 41, without substantial Mexican populations. He didn’t carry any northwest side Puerto Rican wards, despite the backing of Congressman Luis Gutierrez, the city’s most visible Puerto Rican political leader. Gery Chico got trounced by Rahm Emanuel, who had the money to run commercials on television and radio almost incessantly and who had the backing of the mayor’s City Hall political apparatus. In the battle between the new politics of the television and the old politics of the precinct captain, between the new City Hall Machine and the old ward based Machine, the new politics trounced the old politics.

As I’ve said in this blog and in numerous speaking engagements, if Rahm Emanuel were to become mayor by employing money, media, and the Mayor, we could pretty much write the obituary of the old style, ward based political Machine in the city in which it managed to defy the odds and survive through most of the 20th century. So, folks, it’s done; life has imitated art; the story told in my novels, The Chairman and The Chairman’s Challenge, has been played out in real life. The old time Machine is now as dead as Vito Marzullo, Tom Keane, Bernie Neistein, Jake Arvey, Bill Dawson, Paddy Bauler, etc., etc..