(C) Common Dreams
This story was originally published by Common Dreams and is unaltered.
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Chicago Mayor’s Race Could Be a Blueprint for Democratic Messaging on Crime [1]
['Jonathan Weisman']
Date: 2023-04-05
Then Mr. Johnson won.
Mr. Boyle cautioned against reading too much into the outcome. Mr. Vallas may have lost because so much attention was focused on his missteps running the school systems of Chicago, Philadelphia and New Orleans and on his association with Republicans, whether they were suburban business leaders or the pro-Trump president of the local Fraternal Order of Police. With the power of the Chicago teachers’ union behind him, Mr. Johnson out-organized and out-hustled Mr. Vallas, who spent far more money on the campaign.
“This in many ways came down to Paul Vallas,” Mr. Boyle said.
Analysts also cautioned that Mr. Johnson’s victory most likely had less to do with ideology than with Mr. Johnson’s consolidating the Black vote after a divided primary and with Mr. Vallas’s failing to make up for that with a larger-than-expected Hispanic turnout.
But liberal activists were not about to squander the triumph of a young progressive voice who exuded optimism over an older, gruffer moderate who relied heavily on the message that more crime required more police officers with fewer restrictions. Leaders of the Democratic left, including Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, endorsed Mr. Johnson, lifting him from obscurity to a second-place finish in the first round of voting.
And in the end, his appeal in an overwhelmingly Democratic city overcame Mr. Vallas’s efforts to prove his Democratic bona fides with the endorsements of party mainstays, including Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois; Arne Duncan, a secretary of education under President Barack Obama; and former Representative Bobby L. Rush, who became an icon on the South Side as a Black Panther.
“Brandon is representative of today’s Chicago — it’s progressive, it leans younger,” said Representative Jan Schakowsky, a Democrat whose north lakeshore district was the core of Mr. Johnson’s support. “This should give heart to people who want to run progressive campaigns around the country, and it should give inspiration to people who believe in diversity, who believe in individual participation in elections.”
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[1] Url:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/05/us/politics/chicago-mayor-election-democrats-crime.html
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