Why Chicago Matters Nationally
Rahm Emanuel’s surprise decision to not seek a third term as Mayor is an irresistable local story for obvious reasons — Chicago’s mayors reign supreme in our nation’s third largest city and they are replaced rarely. Over the past 75 years, two mayors held the office until death, while Richard M. Daley ruled for better than two decades. Re-election is the default in Chicago and we expect outgoing mayors to have ready successors at hand.
That doesn’t appear to be the case this time. Rahm Emanuel is leaving without a protege ready to roll. Neither is there another Daley waiting in the wings. We hear whispers of Valerie Jarret, but why on earth would she want to do it? There is no single African American leader like Harold Washington. The most obvious Latino candidate, Chuy Garcia, is running for Congress in November.
So we appear headed for demolition derby of an election — with perhaps 20 or more candidates duking it out in February 2019, hoping to make the two candidate runoff in April. And before you ask where have all the candidates come from, ask yourself the even more important question — where will the campaign professionals come from?
This is why the Chicago Mayoral campaign has national significance, not so much for the person elected to manage City Hall. Chicago is way overdue for a 70s era single-term, one-off mayor in the spirit of Michael Bilandic or Jane Byrne, especially given the horrendous fiscal state of the city and the intractable violence that exploded again this summer.
But while the person elected to run it all will have a tough road ahead, the people who help elect this mayor will have cashed a political strategist’s lottery ticket. Only Washington and Boston can rival Chicago for the sheer volume of political talent and there’s something unique about the Second City. Our political consulting firms, direct mail specialists and government-focused P.R. firms for the most part owe their existence to the results of mayoral elections. Pick the right team in Chicago, and you can bank off it for life.
These teams have signifcant power and wealth in Chicago, and that power tends to spread quickly throughout the midwest. The teams that helped put Richard M. Daley into office quickly became the most potent political strategists in neighboring states — including and especially Iowa. Tentacles into Iowa means power in the Democratic Presidential nominating process, and Chicago firms are often in the center of those races.
President Barack Obama was never a part of the old fashioned Chicago political machine — that has been dead for a couple generations. But he definitely benefitted from the abilities and power of the Chicago political consulting machine. David Axelrod and company knew how to win Iowa, and that made all the difference.
Axelrod is now in consulting retirement, having taken his rightful perch at the University of Chicago, teaching politics to the next generation. The empire he built is still intact, but with the 2019 race, it’s no longer assured of its continuing dominance. For the first time since the Harold Washington era, there’s an opportunity for a new political team to take charge.
Many will argue that it’s time for a new team to take over. The 2016 elections should have set off alarm bells in Chicago that the current generation is in trouble. The neighboring states to Illinois — so hospitable to Obama that even Indiana fell in line in 2008 — went one by one to Trump in the last race. Hopes are high for these states in 2018, but Chicago is no longer running the show. If Democrats rise in these states in November, don’t be too surprised if winning campaign managers and consultants from Iowa, Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan immediately get to work in our strange winter 2019 race.
You would think that these outsiders would be at a hopeless disadvantage against the strategists who routinely win re-election after re-election on their home turf. National trends, however, make this a uniquely perilous time for the Chicago political home team.
Chicago is America’s most Democratic and least democratic city. The Republican Party is non existent here — literally. Results for Republicans got so bad in the 1990s that the Republican Governor and legislature at the time decided to turn Chicago’s city elections into non-partisan affairs, just so Republicans wouldn’t have to be embarrassed anymore by candidates pulling 3%, like 1995 GOP nominee Spanky the Clown.
But it’s the least democratic city, at the same time, because the most progressive aspects of the party are consistently held at bay here. A big reason why there’s no Republican Party in Chicago is because there’s no need for one. When faced with a myriad of people vs. powerful choices — charter schools vs. elected school boards, bondholders vs. taxpayers, real estate developers vs. neighborhood activists — Chicago’s Democratic establishment consistently sides with the big money boys, while paying just enough lip service to the Left to prevent open revolt.
At least 75 years of Chicago history — with the partial except of the Harold Washington era — argue that this will continue after the 2019 election. But recent national political trends are flashing a red siren that this may not be the case for any Democrats in America much longer, and this may be why a pol as astute as Rahm Emanuel knew it was the right time to exit stage right.
So Chicago is about to enter a new era and, perhaps, the nation with it. The winning 2019 team may be content to stick around and consolidate decades of political consulting power here at home. Or they might strike when the fires are hot and jump into the 2020 Presidential contest, first in Iowa, then nationally, running with the leftward march that Bernie Sanders began in 2016, possibly merging it with an appeal to the party’s African American base that would make it, at least in primary elections, an unstoppable force.
It’s all going to take place here, in the shadow of police excessive force trials, Chicago Teachers Union muscle flexing, the financial and organizational power of the LGBT community moving to the fore and Latinos demanding a government that stands up to the imminent danger posed by the Trump Administration.
Buckle up America. Chicago 2019 is your future.
