Juan Garcia, crack investigative reporter for The New York Daily News, interviewed Jesus “Chuy” Garcia about his race against Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
Emanuel had hoped to win a decisive victory, but Garcia forced him into a runoff.
Garcia’s theme echoes the winning theme of New York Mayor Bill de Blasio: Chicago has become “a tale of two cities.” A city where the rich and powerful prosper and become more rich and powerful, and a city where working people see their life prospects diminishing.
“People are feeling the effects of inequality in this city, and they don’t like it,” Garcia told me in an exclusive interview Tuesday.
“Rahm has run this city for the benefit of the select few, the high rollers, hedge fund managers, big developers,” he said, “and the people voted for change.”
The Chicago race has instantly turned into the next big test for the soul of the Democratic Party.
It is a face-off between the party’s progressive wing, led by folks like de Blasio, Ras Baraka in Newark and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and its corporate wing, leaders like Emanuel, Gov. Cuomo and Hillary Clinton.
All the experts predicted Emanuel would coast to victory. After all, he was a former top White House aide to President Obama and enjoyed the president’s backing. He is also an incumbent legendary for his take-no-prisoners style and affection for foul language. He raised $15 million, far more than all his rivals combined. And he enjoyed the endorsement of Chicago’s major newspapers.
Garcia, 58, was a little-known former alderman, state senator and community organizer. He didn’t even enter the race until October and he raised a mere $1.3 million. As recently as January, polls showed him with barely 20% support.
But on Election night, Emanuel captured just 45% of the vote – below the 50% needed to avoid a run-of – while Garcia emerged a close second with 33%. New polls now show the gap between the two tightening.
Garcia had the support of the unions, and Emanuel was the candidate of “wealthy downtown” Chicago.
School issues played a large role in the election.
Emanuel was the guy who shuttered 50 failing public schools, rapidly expanded charter schools, and faced off in a bitter 2012 strike with the teachers union.
“The school closings galvanized opposition to the mayor,” Garcia said. “Everyone knows when you close that many schools, you snuff out whatever life there is in a community.”
Garcia had organized a hunger strike by Latino parents a decade ago that forced the city to build the new Little Village Lawndale High School. He opposes further charter school expansion and has called for bringing back an elected school board in Chicago.
The key to the election is the black vote. Emanuel is targeting his TV advertising to black voters. Garcia is hoping they remember that he was a close ally of Harold Washington, Chicago’s first black mayor. Garcia, if elected, would be the city’s first Hispanic mayor.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on radical pragmatism and commented:
Great piece on the Chicago mayoral race.
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Chuy will be getting my vote for sure!
Rahm and his cronies’ days are numbered. They should go join the rest of the representatives of the 1% in the GOP, because people who want conservatives will vote for that party, not DINOs, as demonstrated in the election last November. Genuine Democrats will vote 3rd party before electing another right-wing Democrat who disdains the working poor and seeks to destroy the few remaining labor unions which created the middle class in this country.
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Well stated! I hope you stage a coup in Chicago. Power to the people! I’m a child of the sixties so it just seemed appropriate again.
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Chicagoan Maria Moser, on Edushyster’s blog, weighed in nicely on this;
http://edushyster.com/?p=6535
EXCERPT: “In short, at some point the gap between press conference and reality becomes too glaring to ignore, even for the democracy-squeamish denizens of our beautiful, corrupt home on a frozen lake. The people of Chicago and their lived experiences are an inconvenient truth, and even if the rest of the press forgets the little indignities and lies, we haven’t.
“See you in April, Rahm.”
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Interesting new strategy for Rahm in this commercial released just today…
… go belly up, and admit he’s a jerk… but he’s a jerk who cares and fights for you:
http://inthesetimes.com/article/17708/rahm-emanuels-new-campaign-ad-shows-a-mayor-whos-terrified-hes-about-to-los
Here’s the YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjqQWB3WtCo
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No one can deny that Rahm is a hard worker who likes to get things done, to put up numbers on the board. The major problem with how that is described in his latest ad is that it seeks to get you to ignore that the quality of his work is based on what’s expedient to do based on the needs of his echo chamber of .1% cronies, NOT on what is right to do because it’s the right thing to do for the city of Chicago, NOT because his policy and political decisions are based on the best available information and evidence. It doesn’t matter how hard you work or what you claim your intentions and goals are if your decisions can’t possible get you there and in fact cause harm and fleece the taxpayers. This is the achilles heel of Rahm’s “I’m a jerk because of my hard work” excuses. He works really hard at doing too many obviously wrong things to, not for Chicago.
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Sadly, I just read that the candidate that spends the most wins 94% of the time!
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This is who Rahm is and this is why he needs to lose: https://preaprez.wordpress.com/2015/03/05/rahm-screams-at-mental-health-activists-youre-gonna-respect-me/
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Columnist Clarence Page is Rahm’s cheerleader. Newspapers print Page’s pro-business column and label it, “The View from the Left”.
Page wrote that Mayor 1% is unpopular because he has had to make the tough choices. “Woe is me, I must abuse labor. It is necessary.”
Decisions that stop concentration of wealth cause no pain. Gates wants to give his money away (so he says) and, he’s, apparently, incapable of it. Once again, he is announced as “Richest Man in the World”, while America’s middle class is ground into poverty.
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Oh, well. They all loved Chris Christie too, thought he was a tough guy and cheered on his ridiculous, staged bullying and now it turns out he’s just a garden-variety crook: Ed reform leaders are dropping like flies:
“THE decision by the administration of Gov. Chris Christie to settle an environmental lawsuit against Exxon Mobil Corporation for roughly three cents on the dollar after more than a decade of litigation is an embarrassment to law enforcement and good government.”
We need a “cost of corruption”: tally. People aren’t going to pay attention to this unless we show them how corruption doesn’t just benefit donors and politicians, it also COSTS the public real money.
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This is good news, indeed–his possible victory might influence Cuomo to watch his step!
Diane, please elucidate, what exactly is the definition of a failing school, and how can I directly reach you outside of replying on your blog? I am becoming very politicized, due to your blog, and am reaching out to the media and the UFT. Thanks
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Shelly,
I don’t post my personal email on the blog. I get more email now than I can handle. Contact Arthur Goldstein @fiddle28@gmail.com
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The definition of a failing school is a school with low test scores. The term was almost never heard until late 90s, then entered the vocabulary after NCLB.
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Rahm told Chicago Teachers Union
president Karen Lewis that he believes
that it’s a waste to spend money
educating poor people… as,
according to him, a full
25% of them will not amount to
anything—he said as much to Karen
Lewis in a private meeting. (SEE BELOW)
Here’s an obscure, years-old tweet
referencing something that union-busting Chicago Mayor Rahm
Emanuel had said months ago to CTU President Karen
Lewis in a private meeting.
“25% of Chicago students will never amount to anything,
so I’m not spending any more money on them.”
—————————————————————
Catalyst Chicago Mag @CatalystChicago
Close
Lewis claims Rahm told her that “25% of the children in this city will never amount to anything, and he’s not throwing more money at them.”
—————————————————–
If an L.A. mayor had ever spewed forth such outrageous, ignorant, racist, classist blather, it would merit front-page, above-the-fold, leading-all-the-local-TV-news-worthy coverage, followed by a public outcry of the first magnitude.
A similarly punishing response would occur—a response commensurate with their place on the hierarchy, of course—to any school district official who said such a thing—from the LAUSD Superintendent down to any principal, asst. principal, teacher, etc.
The true-life story of former L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a product of the much-maligned-in-recent-days public school system, is instructive in this instance.
When he was a boy, Antonio’s biological father abandoned his mother and siblings. As a consequence, he was involved in gangs, and criminal behavior as a teenager. Back then, he would certainly have been part of Rahm’s irredeemable 25%.
However, there was one public school teacher, Herman Katz, who took an interest in Antonio. A surrogate father, he encouraged him to make something of himself, pushed him to turn his life around, work harder at school, and then later, apply for college, and on and on…
(And I know this sounds like a Hollywood movie, but it’s the former mayor who claims this all to be true). In lieu of his father, Mayor Villairagosa had Mr. Katz sitting in the front row behind him while he was twice inaugurated.
Here’s a 2-minute video of Mayor Villaraigosa and Herman Katz.
http://myteachermyhero.com/story/98/usa/ca/los-angeles/antonio-villaraigosa/
Do you think if education officials and a teacher like Mr. Katz had the same attitude as Rahm—poor kids (or 25% of them) will never amount to anything so why bother spending money or attention on them—Mayor Villaraigosa’s life would have turned out the way it did?
Do you think that the Walmart-ized charter schools Rahm favors
—with low-paid teachers, poor results, and sky-high attrition of both teachers and students—would produce an outcome like that of Mayor Villaraigosa’s? Indeed, a student with the same behavior profile as Antonio would likely be kicked out … er excuse me… counseled out of these schools, and dumped back into the resource-starved public schools. You know… the same schools that Rahm wants to “stop spending money” on because “the kids will never amount to anything anyway.”
As Karen Lewis put it, “The schools are being deliberately
and systematically starved of resources… and the powers-that-be
are using the resulting low performance they caused as justification for privatizing public education.”
Also, I know a lot about the exclusive Lab School
where Rahm sends his kids. My nephew attended there
my niece still does (and she was a classmate of Malia Obama, BTW).
Apparently, Rahm believes that there should a first-class
education for those who count (his kids and the kids of other
rich folks), and another for the rest (middle and working
class folks).
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To be fair, the media did eventually cover the “25%” quote… months later…
… in an article in the
Chicago Sun-Times (Wed., February 29):
http://www.suntimes.com/news/education/10942589-418/ctu-chief-rahm-gives-up-on-many-chicago-kids.html
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
CTU chief: Rahm gives up on many Chicago kids
By ROSALIND ROSSI
Education Reporter
rrossi@suntimes.com
February 29, 2012 12:08PM
Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis said Tuesday that Mayor Rahm Emanuel told her a quarter of the city’s public school students “are never going to amount to anything’’ and he won’t “throw resources at them” — comments Emanuel quickly denied through a spokeswoman.
Lewis told the Chicago Sun-Times she was “stunned’’ when Emanuel told her, over dinner, that “25 percent of these kids are never going to be anything. They are never going to amount to anything. And I’m not going to throw resources at them.’’
The comments came at her first private meeting with Emanuel before his May inauguration, Lewis said.
Emanuel “did not say that,’’ mayoral spokeswoman Sarah Hamilton countered Tuesday. “Nor does he believe that, which is evident in his actions to improve our schools for all children.’’
Lewis said that “evidence’’ that the mayor’s comments came months later, when his handpicked CPS Chief Administrative Officer, Tim Cawley, told reporters that CPS would not put repair dollars into a school with “a chance’’ of closure in five or 10 years. But Cawley said CPS likes the “bang” for the “capital buck” when physical building improvements coincide with academic turnarounds or other fresh academic starts.
Local School Council members this month cited Cawley’s comments in a lawsuit seeking to block the latest batch of school turnarounds, closings and phaseouts.
“Tim [Cawley] never intended those comments to be construed as they were,’’ CPS spokeswoman Robyn Ziegler said Tuesday. “We are clearly committed to investing in all of our schools regardless of their performance levels to support the academic success of our students.” Cawley did not return phone calls Tuesday seeking further clarification.
———————
And then later… this “25%” quote was brought up again and again
and again… during—and in the weeks leading
up to—the 2012 strike… as partial justification for it. It was
just brought up yet again, in an article for Black Agenda
Reportand Substance News by Bruce Dixon
on April 10, 2014: (in reference to a made-to-order
propaganda documentary extolling Rahm …
CHICAGOLAND)
———————————————–
DIXON: “But there’s lots more that CHICAGOLAND
(TV documentary) doesn’t show us. Soon after
winning the 2011 mayoral election Rahm Emanuel
had a get-acquainted dinner with Chicago Teachers
Union (CTU) president Karen Lewis.
“ ‘25% of the kids,’ he told her, referring to children in
the city’s public schools, ‘are never going to amount to
anything,’ and for that reason he ‘wouldn’t throw
resources at them.’
“The outraged union leader promptly made Emanuel’s
words public. ‘Even if he does believe that,’ Lewis told
this reporter, ‘he cannot say that to me.’
“The mayor’s office immediately denied he’d ever said
such a thing, but nobody who’s paid even passing
attention to Rahm Emanuel’s abrasive, abusive style
over the years believes that. This is after all, a man
who when he lost half his middle finger, claims he
had to learn to talk with his left hand.”
—————————————————–
Truly, this “25%” quote is the gift that
keeps on giving. You can read the above
quote in its full context at:
http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=4930§ion=Article
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Here’s an interesting footnote… the pro-Rahm Chicago Sun-Times deleted the above article about the “25%” quote from their website… the one written by education Sun-Times reporter Rosalind Rossi. Try to read it:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/education/10942589-418/ctu-chief-rahm-gives-up-on-many-chicago-kids.html
Gone with the wind…
It was most likely at the behest or Rahm or one of his people.
Sorry guys, I saved it.
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No more Rahmunism. Keep our tax dollars in our children’s classrooms, stop diverting them to the reformers boardrooms.
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No one can deny that Rahm is a hard worker who likes to get things done, to put up numbers on the board. The major problem with how that is described in his latest ad is that it seeks to get you to ignore that the quality of his work is based on what’s expedient to do based on the needs of his echo chamber of .1% cronies, NOT on what is right to do because it’s the right thing to do for the city of Chicago, NOT because his policy and political decisions are based on the best available information and evidence. It does’nt matter how hard you work or what you claim your intentions and goals are if your decisions and actions can’t possible get you there and in fact cause harm and fleece the taxpayers. This is the achilles heel of Rahm’s “I’m a jerk because of my hard work” excuses. He works really hard at doing too many obviously wrong things to, not for Chicago.
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