General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsRahm Emanuel's Top Nemesis Just Might Take Him On
By Jason Zengerle
If you like your political campaigns bloody, then you have to be cheered by the new poll that found Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis beating Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel in a hypothetical matchup 45 to 36. Lewis, whos been Emanuels primary political antagonist for the last three years and led the 2012 teachers strike that represented the first chink in Emanuels mayoral armor, had long said she had no interest in running against him next February. But in recent weeks, as Chicago (and Emanuel) have reeled from yet another outbreak of gun violence, she began to soften that stance. And when Chicago Sun-Times reporter Natasha Korecki informed Lewis over the weekend of the poll results that found her beating Emanuel by 9, Lewiss response sounded like that of someone whod just been pushed off the fence. Wow, she said. Well, first of all, Im sitting here stunned.
Lewis is rarely at a loss for wordsespecially when it comes to Emanuel. The two have clashed from the beginning of their relationship. Shortly after his election in 2011, Emanuel invited Lewis to dinner at a fancy French restaurant across from Millennium Park. There, according to Lewis, he told her in between bites of lamb that, owing to budget constraints, he did not want to waste precious resources on the bottom 25 percent of Chicago public school students. At a meeting in his City Hall office a few months later, Lewis says, she was arguing with Emanuel over his proposed longer school day when he erupted, Fuck you, Lewis! (Emanuel has heatedly denied the former charge by Lewis about writing off the bottom quarter of public students and essentially pled nolo contendere to the latter about his bad language.) In the run-up to the strike, Lewis called Emanuel a liar and a bully. On another occasion she branded him the murder mayor, elaborating: Look at the murder rate in this city. Hes murdering schools. Hes murdering jobs. Hes murdering housing.
I just think theres something clearly wrong with him, Lewis told me last year when I sat down with her at CTUs offices in the Merchandise Mart. A heavyset African-American woman in her early 60s, Lewis was a Chicago public school chemistry teacher for 25 years before she was elected CTU president in 2010. Although they might seem polar opposites, she and Emanuel have a lot in common. Both are former dancers and ballet aficionados, as well as products of elite colleges: Lewis was the first African-American woman to graduate from Dartmouth; Emanuel attended Sarah Lawrence. And Lewis, like Emanuel, is Jewish, having converted from Lutheranism 20 years ago. (She did not invite Emanuel to her Bat Mitzvah last summer.)
more
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/118694/rahm-emanuel-vs-karen-lewis-would-be-bloody-mayoral-battle
mucifer
(23,484 posts)He is VERY unpopular.
This election is too soon for anyone but Toni Preckwinkle to beat him and she isn't running.
She is the Cook County board president and is very popular and no fan of Rahm.
She is doing good work in her current job with the budget cutting she has to do.
She is for some pension reform. But, she is also for early prison release for nonviolent offenders and she is very vocal about the inequality of the justice system in Cook County and the country at large.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)Leave it to the political professionals, they know what they're doing.
Sorry, that's what your kneejerk response sounds like.
mucifer
(23,484 posts)You have to build an infrastructure in this city. Harold Washington did it with a lot of work. He broke all sorts of barriers. But, he couldn't have done it overnight.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)She led a political movement in direct opposition to the incumbent that established her name and her causes with the people in the city to the point wherein this poll shows her 9 points ahead of Emanuel. For a start, does any other possible candidate have a higher name recognition, or direct identification of the name with a politics? Is there any individual better known as the opposition to Rahm?
But you are right: July is very, very late. It didn't used to be. (Not even in 1992, I remember Perot (re)entering at that point.)
As for having no money yet, that can be jiu-jitsued as a plus. In effect, Rahm's inevitable flood of attack ads will serve as the reminder to vote for her. This is what Bloomberg managed in 2009, when his opponent was a nullity. No one with a chance dared to run against the bastard despite the coup with term limits, because said person would be chopped up and cut out "forever" if they lost by the merciless Bloomberg political machine. We were getting mail every day and Bloomberg commercials several times an hour, in a barrage that had already started a year in advance. He spent like $180 million out of pocket (and why not, his fortune grew from $2 billion to $18 billion during his tenure) and hired unbelievable numbers of street workers to maintain the harrassment. This proved highly successful in getting people to hate Bloomberg every day, and bang! On election night the nullity had somehow come up with 46% of the vote, thanks to Bloomberg's own campaign of demonizing him three times an hour every hour every channel on the telly. (If certain people had figured this out we might have had, gag, Mayor Weiner!)
De Blasio also played well with a lot less money than Quinn. It was about strategic and intelligent application of an ANTI-MONEY message (whether or not it was sincere), which 73% of New York voters were ready to hear.
Faux pas
(14,645 posts)squared. That is all.
BrotherIvan
(9,126 posts)That they would like to walk up to Rahm and Ari's parents and tell them, "Congratulations! You managed to raise two of the biggest assholes in the country!" I have to heartily agree. They're trying to outdo each other for a lifetime of utter assholery.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)yeah, we have to feel sorry for Zeke, where'd he come from?
BrotherIvan
(9,126 posts)Because dad is an utter asshole. Or he might be just slightly less of an asshole so he appears to be from a different family, because I do know people whose parents and siblings were assholes and turned out ok, but they can have intensely assholish moments. You just never know with assholes.
betterdemsonly
(1,967 posts)and the war think we are going to put up with them taking over our party and it isn't true. It isn't our problem the republicans don't want them either.
Lifelong Protester
(8,421 posts)I am way too idealistic, not as pragmatic as many, but I would love to see her beat his sorry backside.
Sienna86
(2,148 posts)grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)irisblue
(32,931 posts)since I do not live any where near Chicago, my opinions are irrelevant.
riderinthestorm
(23,272 posts)Karen Lewis is great.
QuestForSense
(653 posts)He started off with a bang - it was a big miscalculation to go after the teachers. The public-at-large did not appreciate this. And, they got to see the naked truth about who they actually voted for, at his most prickish, and at his most arrogant. Personally, I don't think he has a big enough personality to be the Mayor of the City of Chicago. He'll lose a race against Lewis, and good riddance.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)They never do.
Nationally you can market out-and-out trolls thanks to peoples' binary thinking and the enormously varied demographics, so for some reason people couldn't see that Bush and McCain and Romney were all obvious sociopaths who could barely control their own drives (or speak English, in the first one's case). That's harder on the local level, where you can however make up for it with patronage and using other levers of a political machine.
QuestForSense
(653 posts)MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)Kicked and recommended!
Chisox08
(1,898 posts)I will be in the front of the line to volunteer for her campaign if she runs. Emanuel has got to go.
Hell Hath No Fury
(16,327 posts)Succinctly put.