What Does The Chicago Mayoral Election Mean?

Yesterday, in a five-way race, Rahm Emanuel won his bid to be the Mayor of Chicago, receiving 55% of the vote. That majority vote means that there will be no run-off election for the office. So, what does that say about Chicago and its voters? To me, it says that they have simply decided that they want that candidate to be Mayor, so they elected him.

Some people dislike Emanuel, but it appears that those people are a minority in Chicago. The Democratic base decided that they wanted Rahm Emanuel to be Mayor. The base - the voters who are Democrats who turn out and vote in every election - have chosen him in what is a surprisingly solid victory in a five-way race. It's unusual in such races to get a majority in the first ballot, unless the winner is an incumbent.

Lots of people who don't live in Chicago have opined about this election. There have been predictions of a much closer race, and even predictions that the voters of Chicago would reject Emanuel. Neither of those predictions worked out.

There was an election. The voters turned out. Rahm Emanuel is the Mayor of Chicago. That's how we do things here. We vote for the person we want to hold an office. This is a local race. What people who don't live in Chicago think is irrelevant, to be frank. It is the vote in Chicago that is relevant. The voters have spoken. That's how we do things here.

To get a different result, we'd have to have a different system. So far, I have seen nobody propose a change in the system. Given that, we continue to have elections and the people who vote in them decide. In my opinion, that's exactly how it should be. Congratulations to Mr. Emanuel, on winning your election. Good luck to you as Mayor. I don't live in Chicago, so I didn't vote for you.

:popcorn:

I just wanted to post my opinion on that election. Elections don't always turn out how people think they should. They turn out how the voters who voted in them want them to turn out. Everything else is irrelevant. We vote and elect candidates for office. It is that simple. If we do not vote, we do not have input into the system. The voters of Chicago decided this election. It was their election.

we should invest in tinfoil stocks... make a fortune.

money was raised. I'm more interested in the 50% of voters who didn't bother to show up. That's the number that interests me, really.

To the GOP, Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi are that demon. To many here, Rahm Emmanuel is that demon.

They seem to think Rahm Emanuel will be a good Mayor. Imagine that.

You must not read the posts around here........

:eyes:

I went back and read it again. That's what the poster wrote.

:hi:


new shipment!!! BTW, did you have to install a new room on your house to store all these?

So cute!!!

They are all in my bedroom. I'm surrounded by bankies.

:7



:pals:

Don't get me wrong, he definitely had something going for him... he wasn't Daley.

Then again, you have to take a look at the fact that this city has re-elected Daley during a span of over two decades, when the man obviously had made some disastrous choices for this city.

Daley made Chicago a world class city and then sold public parts of it off to (not even) the highest bidder. I see no difference in Rahm's corporate philosophy.

Rahm had name recognition and millions of dollars, not to mention TWO PRESIDENTS endorsing him and advocating on his behalf.

There is only one person that really had a shot at running and winning the mayoral contest other than Rahm and he got tied up in a stupid scandal.

So basically I pray for the teachers and other working class people of this city because I don't think they are going to benefit at all from an Emanuel mayorship. I hope I am proved wrong.

all that closely, but I'm aware of the Daley thing. Even so, Rahm Emanuel won the election. My point is that our system operates that way, even though not everyone likes the results. If that system continues to be in place, we will get the results we get. It doesn't seem likely that we're going to change the system, so the question seems to be how we might change the results.

I don't know what the turnout was in Chicago, but that seems to be the thing that's most amenable to change. If we want different results, do we not have to turn out more people who agree with our views? Do we not have to educate people so they will make wise choices? I see no alternative but to do exactly that, assuming we really want to change the results.

That's really the point of this OP, you know. In the US, we vote for people to represent us in government. It is our responsibility to get people who believe as we do to go to the polls and vote. We don't seem capable of even suggesting a different system of government, so it appears that we have our work cut out for us.

We can control the results of our elections. We don't, for the most part, though. We bewail the results when they aren't as we believe they should be. There is an solution to that problematic situation.

That's how we do things here? You can say THAT again.

You are the master of the obvious.

Or, perhaps not. I don't know. There's another idea in there.

This signals a turning of the tide! The people have spoken, and woe to those incumbents who ignore this clear signal! It's the beginning of the end of business as usual, and those who have invested their fortunes in the system as it is will soon get their come-uppance, the fuckers.

Wait; this was a Democratic win?

Oh, then it doesn't mean anything.

is that name recognition matters.

Emanuel is a highly visible politician at the national level. no surprise that he won - people vote for people all the time simply b/c someone is the best-known candidate. incumbents win re-election all the time for this same reason - and b/c they get lots of money to fund their campaigns.

I hope Emanuel does a good job as mayor.

Chicago is a big city with big problems. Wish all those in Chicago well. It's a great city.

We just don't use it much. You're right, though. It's no surprise that Rahm Emanuel won. I certainly wasn't surprised.

Like you, I do hope he does a good job.

the municipal elections in chicago are non-partisan.

do get endorsed by the parties here in Minnesota. I think the Chicago municipal elections are probably partisan, at least in reality, if not in theory. At least here, I've participated in our DFL caucus and convention system, where we choose who to endorse, and those endorsements play a prominent role in campaigns for "non-partisan" offices.

they have a bit of a toehold with the rich here, but as a party, they are a joke. but most of them probably voted for rahm, as he was very friendly with the big money that he represented as a rep. that is not an accusation of impropriety. they were his constituents.

This is a solidly Democratic city, and no Republican would waste their time running for mayor here. So, that a Democrat would become mayor is a given to begin with. Which Democrat is the only question.

I think what people have to understand here is what the other choices were. I watched several of the debates and followed coverage in the newspapers with some interest. One could rule out the two bottom tier candidates as well as Carol Mosely Braun: she just totally jumped the shark and also inspired no confidence in her ability to run a city. Gery Chico, of whom I had no opinion prior to this election (I only moved here six years ago) impressed me as the ultimate machine insider: he appeared to be all-powerful alderman Ed Burke's puppet. And although he is smart and smooth (too smooth), he was the real corporate choice, in my opinion: in his law practice he spent most of its time representing corporations to the city for contracts. We don't need more of that. That left, aside from Emanuel, Miguel del Valle, the current City Clerk. I really liked him: he's well spoken and has the right politics, on an ideological level. Only two reasons led me not to vote for him: (1) He seemed perhaps not quite strong-armed enough to run this tough city, hog-butcher to the world; and (2) He was polling around 5% close to election day. I could have voted for him as a symbol, but all it was going to do was force a second, run-off election in April between Emanuel and Chico. I didn't want to see millions more spent on campaigns and millions more from a strapped city budget to run a second citywide election in a few months. It was inevitable: Rahm ran an excellent campaign. It wasn't just name recognition. He put in the legwork every single day and was issuing 5-point plans all over the place. He kept his cool, stood in the cold in all 50-some wards of this city, and showed up at the Home of Chicken and Waflles. The picture sort of tells it all:

worked hard for it.

If I were a government worker that belonged to a union in Chicago, I'd be getting ready to fight to protect my hard earned gains.

It doesn't really have much to do with this election, though. I don't see Mayor Emanuel trying to bust unions. Wouldn't be prudent at all for him to do such a thing. Do you live in Chicago?

What has he ever done for unions? As far as I know he thinks union supporters are f'n retards.

If you know better, this would be a good time to inform us.

Do you live in Chicago?

So... your point is that you don't know what Rahm will do?

And what about what he said about people who didn't follow along behind him when he was CoS?

I suppose we'll find out soon enough, won't we. As I said, I didn't vote for him. I don't live in Chicago. Do you?

Many have made their impressions of the campaigner...the power broker playing the inside party game and winning at it. But that's a lot different than governing...especially when it comes to Chicago.

While this is a Democratic city, it's not a "liberal" one. It's comprised of many ethnic blocks where voting Democratic is a family tradition...be it Black, Hispanic, Irish, Polish, Jewish, German and so on. Mayors have always been those who are viewed as getting things done...kicking asses where needed and making sure the buses and trains run on time, the schools stay open, cops answer calls, streets get plowed and garbage picked up.

He'll have big shoes to fill as Richie Daley exceeded his father's legacy and the city has survived while others around the Midwest have hit hard times.

very well, so thanks for your information. Do you know what the turnout was for this election?

Also the splintering of the black and hispanic vote had an effect. Most of the other candidates were poorly funded and even more poorly prepared for the job, including Carol Mosley-Braun. Unlike the Council Wars of the 80s where you had two distinct blocs (blacks & liberals vs. ethnic, conservative whites) Rahm enjoyed widespread support.

That's key to this whole thing, I think. Perhaps the answer to changing outcomes lies in the 59% who didn't show up to vote. Perhaps that's where we should start focusing if we want to change the outcome of elections. I don't know, but that seems to make sense to me.

remember how many people said the 2010 results was somehow caused by picking rahm?

no, nothing to do with the economy, lower turnout, it was because... of.. who was COS..
bizarre ain't it? your average voter couldn't pick rahm out of a lineup, or even recognize the name..

It's not that complicated. I was neutral, it's not my city and I didn't know the other candidates. The only one that I was hoping didn't get any traction was Braun, and to my heart's content, she came in last.

:D

So it is in most elections. Those who go to the polls and vote decide.

Apparently he had some union support for the office. Like I said, I don't follow Chicago politics that closely. I live in Saint Paul, MN, and that's where my political efforts are centered.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/elections/ct-met-elect-mayor-0223-20110223-85,0,5679594.story

Pretty low for a hotly-contested mayoral election. It's significant that 59% of voters didn't bother to vote, I think. Seems like that could be improved and might change the outcome. That's sort of my point in all this.

i think the biggest problem we face is apathetic citizens who don't care enough to vote.

to changing things, I believe. While some non-voters are apathetic, certainly, there are ways to educate them and encourage them to vote. Here in my blue collar precinct in Saint Paul, we turned out 60% for an off-year election. Many of the people I spoke to while walking the precinct during the campaign said that they weren't planning to vote, because "it didn't matter." I convinced a number of them that it did matter, and that the election would directly affect their lives. I saw a couple of those at the polling place when I voted.

I truly believe that it is one-on-one communication with local voters by people from their own neighborhood that gets people to the polls who might otherwise not bother. I know that's an old-fashioned sort of idea, but it appears to work.

we need to run DK style liberals in the midwest and deep south, and somehow magically they'll win.

it's looking at it in political terms, where i think it needs to be viewed as a long term ideological battle.

until you've properly promoted a liberal\progressive ideology to people in traditionally conservative areas, you're not going to get anywhere.

a lot of work by a lot of people, over a long period of time. It won't be easy. I hope we're up to it. At 65, time is running out for me to be an active, energetic participant.

dems, not so much.

not by cheaters, just by registrations that are outdated. motor voter has also swelled the rolls with registered non-voters.
and it is february, cold, and was snowing all morning. after the blizzard here a couple weeks ago, many were not up for a trip out into the snow. i worked the polls, and i can tell you that the morning was very slow and the evening rush was larger than normal. in between, it stopped snowing and warmed up a little.

Look at what he did in the 2006 elections, for example.

If I live in a city I *want* a bright, competent person to be the mayor. I don't really care about ideology as long as the snow gets cleared and the garbage gets picked up. In Chicago I would have voted for Rahm without hesitation.

Just kidding :toast:

Rahm came out in support of unions and I was shocked. Must have been a political calculation. But his Mother was a union organizer. He may have got a 'visit' for recent comments and actions.

It appears that some think he's anti-union. Thanks for your information.

I thought he'd slam them. Didn't he push NAFTA and GATT?

Anyway, I hope it was sincere. He's a sharp, likable guy.

His job as CoS for the President just wasn't that big a deal for me, so I didn't really pay that much attention to him.

I thought it was interesting, though, that he had his victory speech in Chicago at a union hall. Doesn't sound like he's going to be a union buster in Chicago, anyhow. I suspect he has lots of other issues to deal with there, and that's an understatement.