THE BEN & JESSE SHOW

Ben and Jesse

Ben Joravsky had lots of good questions for acting CTU Pres. Jesse Sharkey at last night's Take Back Chicago event, organized by Parents 4 Teachers.

We were greeted outside the Luther Memorial Church by organizers from both the Fioretti and Garcia campaigns asking us to sign their petitions. What a dilemma! You can't legally sign both. Luckily, my daughter Joanna was with me, so we each signed one, avoiding my existential crisis. What a silly law.

Sharkey didn't speak directly to the union's endorsement in the upcoming mayor's race, but made his feelings clear that the more progressive candidates in the race, the better chance of forcing Rahm into a run-off. That comment drew the biggest response from the audience. The only announced mayoral candidate I saw in the room was long-shot Amara Enyia. I hope she does well.

Sharkey also made clear the union's support for a host of candidates running in ward elections and optimistically predicted an end to Rahm's super-majority in the City Council. He also predicted success for an elected-school-board initiative ultimately getting on the ballot.

I'm still struggling with this image for some reason. 

Joravsky had a busy day, yesterday. Aside from prepping for last night's forum, he also banged out some wit and wisdom in this timely Reader post, A reminder to Mayor Rahm's 2015 opponents: It's a runoff, dummies!

My point is that once Mayor Rahm fires up that propaganda machine to turn himself into the second coming of Abraham Lincoln, the best bet to beat him is to encourage as many people as possible to vote against him. No matter who they're voting for. And it's kind of hard to do that if Chuy's bashing Bob, and Bob's bashing Chuy, and so on and so forth, thus turning everybody off.

Phil Huckleberry's post at Gapers Block, Chuy Garcia Jumps In, Realignment Begins, has a similar, but slightly different ring than Ben's make-love-not-war plea to progressives. Huckleberry is realistic enough to know that the struggle for a runoff spot is bound to be intense. But he still sees a way for a common progressive strategy against belt-holder, Rahm.

What we see emerging is a classic WWE triple threat match. (If you think that high-stakes politics has little in common with professional wrestling, then you're probably not very familiar with either phenomenon!)

I'm not a big wrestling fan, but I get the point.

Gloomy Ben kept asking Jesse for some good news. Here's some. Everybody (including some 1%-ers) hates Rahm. Most polls I've seen, show the mayor's negative ratings up around 55%. Even Rahm's own hired gun David Axelrod, calls him a son-of-a-bitch. Only Axelrod thinks, that's a good thing.

S-T's Chad Merda writes:

And that's backed up by his dismal public support; an Early & Often poll showed he only had 29 percent support overall and 8 percent from African-Americans. “Thank God the election is not today," Emanuel said in August.

God's not on your side, Rahm. See picture above.