“As it relates to education, ‘Anybody but Rahm’ is the mantra I hear.” -- Rose Joshua, president of the NAACP’s Southside branch.Rahm is bombarding us every 15 minutes, it seems, with slick, expensive TV ads. What the hell, he's got $30+ million in his
Rahm's ads are now directed personally at Jesus "Chuy" Garcia who polls show is his strongest challenger. The ads are negative, horrific, filled with lies and deception. No surprise there. Smells like David Axelrod's work.
Chuy Garcia's campaign has countered with a good one, with two of my favorites, Prof. Timuel Black, 95, and Asean Johnson, 11-- discussing Rahm's school closures. Don't miss.
SYMBIOSIS -- People are still talking about Daley's endorsement. Everyone knows how much former Mayor Richie Daley and the Daley family despise Rahm, who has blamed all of his failed education and crime policies on his predecessor. But Chicago politics is a complex weave of interests. For a primer, take a look at Tim Novak's piece, "Daley nephew Patrick [Daley] Thompson — running for alderman — faces conflicts", in today's S-T. It helps explain the overlapping interests of the Daley family and Rahm's Democratic political machine.
Thompson recused himself from voting 10 more times last Nov. 6 — seven of those votes related to a $300 million deal involving Daley’s law firm, Katten Muchin, and financial behemoth Morgan Stanley, which Thompson’s cousin, William Daley Jr., works for as a lobbyist. The bonds — to pay for Deep Tunnel and other construction projects — were issued shortly before Christmas. Katten Muchin got paid $132,719. Morgan Stanley got $66,556.Stephanie Simon's piece in today's POLITICO, "Education at heart of Chicago mayor's race", explains the high stakes involved in this election. It's not just about Chicago.
Simon says:
But if Emanuel wins despite the unions’ best efforts, analysts say it would embolden other Democratic reformers to forge ahead with a controversial agenda that includes closing struggling neighborhood schools, expanding privately run charter schools and overhauling the teaching profession by repealing tenure, trimming benefits and paying teachers in part based on how well their students score on standardized tests.
Portions of this agenda are already being championed by high-profile Democrats including New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy — and, most notably, by Emanuel’s one-time boss in the White House, President Barack Obama. But the reform camp predicts more mayors, in particular, will be willing to jump into the fray if Emanuel proves that a big-city Democrat can defy the teachers union, anger a whole lot of black and Hispanic parents — and still pull off a win against liberal rivals in his own party.VOTE!
The Concept charter school situation with the FBI raids are nothing for Rahm to be proud of.
ReplyDeleteI strongly agree. Having worked on these issues for so many years now, I think our biggest problem is a non-voting public that doesn't care or has given up. I no longer call myself a Democrat because so many Democrats have shown their true colors--money and profits first just like most Republicans--profits before people--particularly when it comes to our children--so what they're doing is intentionally "breeding" the next generation of children who have no idea what they're responsibilities are in our once-almost great-democracy, our history, our Constitutional rights, civics, the ability to think, ask, and act, foregoing a combination of social services and capitalism for straight profits and complete lack of caring about people over money. People like Emanuel and Rauner have no trouble with tax welfare and benefits for lazy corporate executives but despise people getting any benefits when they've been forced into horrendous situations by the greed of their corporate bosses. We're told over and over again the lies that there's no money for social programs, including schools, but we must give tax write-offs to corporations to keep them from leaving the state, and we seem to have plenty of tax money for not only charters schools with no accountability for where that money goes or what they're teaching our children, but we also have endless money for never-ending wars. That's the corporate, plutocratic, libertarian model of today's America from both parties.
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