Chicago
Oddsmakers are betting on three-peat for Mayor Daley

By MANUEL GAL VAN

There's never a players' strike in politics. Chicago's true sport is a perennial favorite, where demands and negotiations are as much a part of the game as curve balls and high sticking.

Weeks before the final inning in this month's gubernatorial contest, the 1995 mayor's race was being debated in bars and handicapped in polite dinner conversation.

The defending champion, Democratic Mayor Richard M. Daley, has been looking very much like an unbeatable incumbent. With national praise for the mayor, the Democratic Party in August announced that its 1996 convention would be brought to Chicago. And last month Daley unveiled his proposed city budget for 1995, offering something for everyone. For business, there was $20 million in tax relief. For neighborhoods, there was $140 million in improvements. And for homeowners, there was a property tax freeze.

Oddsmakers favor Daley in the February primary because of his high voter appeal among non-minorities and Hispanics, a winning coalition his previous times out. Daley even has a favorable rating among African Americans for his staunch support of John Stroger as the first African-American president of the Cook County Board. In addition, no candidate has surfaced with an ability to coalesce significant opposition. That has been demonstrated by extremely low voter registration numbers. Without a massive number of new voters. Mayor Harold Washington wouldn't have been able to beat Mayor Jane Byrne in 1983. The Democratic mayoral primary is simply Daley's to win or lose.

Of the three most mentioned primary challengers — all remnants of the Washington movement — only Joseph Gardner, the late mayor's political director, had formally announced by early October. U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush and Cook

County Clerk David Orr privately sought counsel from inner-circle supporters and quietly negotiated with elected officials and potential fund-raisers. Their plan was to wait until after the November election and as close to the December filing deadline as possible before announcing their intentions.

Meanwhile, African-American activists went scoreless this July in their demands to find a consensus candidate, failing to spark the type of movement that carried Washington to City Hall. Several names were tossed in, and out, including state Sen. Alice Palmer, Aid. Dorothy Tillman (3rd) and Aid. John Steele (6th). In the end, both Gardner and Rush gave strong indications of running and splitting the African-American vote, signaling a replay of blacks' failed 1989 and 1991 political seasons.

Gardner, a commissioner with Chicago's water reclamation district, gambled that by jumping into the race early he would lay claim to the anti-mayor vote and discourage other challengers. The early-bird strategy, after all, had worked for Byrne in 1979. The usual downside of this strategy, however, is that by peaking too early the candidate loses momentum and suffers a lack of funds going into the final weeks of the campaign.

For Gardner, his peak may have come on August 28 when he announced that he was running for mayor and seeking to regroup the Washington coalition. Long regarded as a coalition builder, Gardner was joined at the press conference by the controversial Wallace "Gator" Bradley, whose group, the United In Peace Organization, has been linked to street gangs. When pressed, Gardner said, "I don't separate people on the basis of gang membership." So much for Gardner's chances to raise money from businesses and residents in a city where crime is a chief concern.

Why not just dump the gangs? The same activist strategy that denies anyone

34 / November 1994 / Illinois Issues

but an African American the right to lead the Washington movement requires a candidate to win by capturing at least 96 percent of the black vote. That's not going to happen if a candidate fumbles any black support that comes his way. That's the reason some aldermen have never criticized Minister Louis Farrakhan and Gardner can't let go of gangbangers.

Rush, a former alderman and a former Black Panther, has made a reasonably good impression as a freshman congressman. He is currently the deputy chairman of the Illinois Democratic Party and enjoys the recognition of being the most popular African-American mayoral candidate, according to a survey taken for him by a Washington, D.C., pollster.

Taxpayers, however, were recently tagged for Rush's one-time efforts to trample the First Amendment. In 1988, he and two other aldermen stormed the School of the Art Institute and had Chicago police remove a tasteless painting of Washington. In September, a federal judge approved a civil rights settlement in which the city (a.k.a. taxpayers) must cough up $95, 000 to end the litigation.

Orr, as a Chicago alderman, had a reputation for being — in the words of one angry colleague — a "goody two-shoes." His flinchless belief in reform led Washington to pick him as vice mayor, which resulted in Orr's running the city for eight, dark days in 1987 after the death of his mentor.

As city clerk, Orr tackled an office that winked at cronyism, patronage and "business as usual." He introduced internal reforms and improved the office by investing monies which had long been ignored in non-interest bearing accounts. They earned $140, 000 in the first quarter alone. Unfortunately, the scenario for Orr's winning requires him to be embraced as the African-American candidate. But no major black support is knocking at his door.

Unlike Chicago's other sports, where the fans get used to rooting for the underdog, voters are expected to cheer for Daley and give the mayor a primary three-peat.

Manuel Galvan is a Chicago-based writer and marketing consultant.

November 1994 / Illinois Issues / 35