GTFO KEN GRIFFIN: Indiana wants you.

Billionaire grifter Ken Griffin keeps threatening to leave Chicago. He hates this place. Too many poor folks. Too much public space —you know, public schools, parks, libraries... It’s that word public that gets him. Makes him gag.

To top it off, a Black, gay woman is the mayor. She beat the pants off of his candidate, Bill Daley in the last election despite Griffin’s million-dollar bankrolling of Daley’s great-white-hope campaign...

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Progressives split in Chicago race. Can they unite against Daley in a runoff?

With the first round of the mayoral election only a week away, things are starting to get hot and heavy. Progressives are split at least three ways (Toni Preckwinkle, Lori Lightfoot and Amara Enyia) and there's lots of vitriol back and forth among their camps..

Cook County party boss Toni Preckwinkle, with early support from many progressives, including the CTU and SEIU seemed like the clear front-runner a month ago.  The SEIU endorsements alone translated into roughly $2M in cash and in-kind contributions to Preckwinkle and nearly two dozen full-time campaign workers and upwards of 500 part-time volunteers.

Bill Daley, the man from JP Morgan and the candidate without a shred of progressive pretense, has replaced Rahm Emanuel as the darling of Chicago's 1%-ers. They've gone all in on Daley because, 1) they fear a takeover of the city by left-wing insurgents of the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez type and 2) his early lead in fundraising has them believing he's a for-real candidate, who can win.

The irony is that the modern notion of Democratic Partyinsurgency they're so afraid off, goes back to Harold Washington's victory over the Daley machine in 1983. But the latest attempt at building a progressive electoral coalition petered out after the collapse of the Bernie Sanders coalition in 2016 leading to the election of J.B. Pritzker as governor with no real progressive opponent.

The current internecine warfare over mayoral choices results from progressive groups not being able to unify around candidates for mayor and governor two years ago.

Instead, Rahm, their main electoral target with plummeting poll numbers following his Laquan McDonald cover-up and his school-closing debacle, pulled a slick move and abandoned the race altogether, before we had a chance to beat him. Even though #RahmResign was exactly what progressives had been demanding, it took many of them them by surprise, as Amisha Patel of the Grassroots Collaborative admitted on our show on February 1st.

Without Rahm as a unifying target, the door was left open for a gaggle of old-line, well-financed Democratic Party regulars to jump in and suck up all the money and organizational support.

Mendoza, Chico, Daley and Preckwinkle, none of whom dared enter the race while Rahm was still in it, all jumped in and immediately got the support and credibility from the party bosses and powerful donors who had been sitting on the sidelines. Daley was the biggest beneficiary with $7M in big-donor money. $2M coming directly from Republican billionaire Ken Griffin.

But the good news is that despite their swollen campaign coffers and TV advertising, none of the party machine regulars or great-white-hope alternatives (Paul Vallas & Gary McCarthy) have been able to create any excitement at the base and break from the pack.

If the vote were taken today, undecided or none-of-the-above would be the clear winner. According to most recent polling, the top 5, including underdog and party outlier, Lori Lightfoot are all with a few points of each other and any two could make it to the runoff, especially if this becomes a low-turnout election.

Lightfoot, who if elected, would become the city's first black, woman, lesbian mayor, is a clear underdog. But she's gained momentum and funding in recent weeks, especially after picking up the Sun-Times endorsement, while Preckwinkle and Mendoza have failed to improve their numbers since being connected to the Burke/Solis scandal.

Progressive Preckwinkle supporters, including those in the CTU and SEIU, who backed her early when union haters Rahm, Vallas and McCarthy seemed like her main opponents, probably did so more because they thought she would win rather than  because of fundamental political agreement. But now they're stuck with her even as her campaign falters and stumbles towards the finish line.

They fear a Lightfoot victory next week will lead to Daley's election in the finals and are training all their tactical guns and money on Lightfoot. For her part, Lightfoot sees Preckwinkle as part and parcel of the Burke/Berrios party machinery and has been gunning for her from the start.

Lori Lightfoot goes head to head with Toni Preckwinkle ally, Rep. Martwick: “You were a Joe Berrios surrogate for the entire campaign. You filed this bill [to appoint rather than elect assessor] to profit yourself. Who benefits from a system that’s not changed?” Lightfoot said.

Things really came to a head this week when State Rep. Rob Martwick, closely tied to Berrios and Preckwinkle, tried to disrupt a Lightfoot presser and ended up in a well-photographed head-to-head, David vs. Goliath confrontation with the candidate. Martwick is authoring a bill that would make the County Assessor an appointed, rather than elected position. The bill is obviously meant as payback against anti-machine guy, Fritz Kaegi who defeated Boss Berrios in the assessor's race.

But the damaging confrontation instead meant more bad press for Preckwinkle and the machine. Martwick had to back off, claiming that his bill was only meant as a "conversation starter" while Preckwinkle was forced to issue a joint statement with Kaegi, opposing the Martwick bill.

If all this has your head spinning as you enter the voting booth, join the crowd. Daley seems like the main beneficiary of all this mayhem in the progressive camps, if he and Preckwinkle wind up in a runoff. A Daley/Mendoza runoff is also possible if Preckwinkle continues to stumble.

Amara Enyia, running with big campaign donations from rappers Chance the Rapper and Kanye West, hopes to pick up support from young black activists and hard-left organizers. But she doesn't seem to be gaining traction as the race draws to a close.

But if somehow, Lightfoot pulls an upset on Feb. 26, the whole thing is up for grabs. The progressives only hope is for some kind of reconciliation between Lightfoot, Preckwinkle and Enyia supporters and that's not likely.

But in a close, low-turnout election, anything can happen.

Buckle up and vote.


I'll be AWOL for Friday's Hitting Left show when brother Fred tries to make some sense of all this with Chicago campaign strategist, Joanna Klonsky and Progressive Caucus leader, Ald. Scott Waguespack. But I'll be tuning in to WLPN 105.5 FM, via live streaming on www.lumpenradio.com from 11-noon CT. I hope you will join me. 

The 'Magic question' -- I don't think so.

"Griffin could solve the problem just by paying his taxes." -- Karen Lewis

S-T reporters Fran Spielman and Loren Fitzpatrick call it "the magic question": How can CPS make looming pension payment and payroll?  They say CPS is faced with "impossible choices" with its cash reserves depleted, the Springfield budget stalemate dragging on and three weeks to go before a $634 million teacher pension payment is due.

Well, I stopped believing in "Magic" when Shaq left Orlando and the choices don't seem all that  "impossible" to me. In fact, they're are quite clear. You can continue to try and bleed the infirm and elderly who are barely making ends meet on fixed incomes.

OR the Mayor can push pals Madigan and Cullerton to make a deal for a temporary fix from Rauner and the legislature. And then -- do the right thing and find the only long-term solution. Find new revenue streams, and I don't mean a casino. In other words, make the wealthiest in the state begin paying their fair share of taxes. Illinois is currently one of the ten most regressive tax states in the country

As CTU Pres. Karen Lewis put it during last Tuesday's panel discussion at the Hideout.

"We have to have serious conversations about revenue now... And if we're talking about anything else, then we're not going anywhere." (43.19)

Then she put the exclamation point on it:

"Ken Griffin alone could write a check that could solve the pension problem...just by paying his taxes."  (122.24)

Griffin recently donated $155 million to Harvard in order to get another tax break.

Of course, what you generally get back from our knee-bending legislators is: But if we tax the billionaires, the banks and the corporations, they will flee the state. 

I don't know about you, but I have a hard time imagining someone like Griffin, abandoning his $24 billion hedge-fund empire in Chicago and turning that business over to his competitors, paying off his ex-wife, and then heading for low-tax Podunk, Nebraska, over a tax bump.

No, the real flight from Chicago is being made by the city's poor and largely African-American work force who can't find well-paying jobs here any more and can't afford housing here either. More than a quarter of a million black people have left the city in the past decade. Imagine if they were all still here, working good union jobs and paying takes, how much better Chicago's economy would look.

No, the choices aren't "impossible".  They're necessary.

Last night at the Hideout

First Tuesday at the Hideout last night: Karen Lewis, Ben Joravsky, Troy LaRaviere, and Mick Dumke. 

It was the best First Tuesday yet at the Hideout. CTU Pres. Karen Lewis and Blaine Principal Troy LaRaviere were compelling, powerful and funny guests.

What came across was that the main focus of attention has to be new and equitable revenue streams to solve the city and state pension and debt crises. This ultimately means increased taxes for 1%ers like billionaire Ken Griffin, who makes $90,000 per hour even while he's sleeping, and who, as Lewis points out, "could solve the city's problems himself just by paying his fair share of taxes." LaRaviere described graphically the "parasitic" relationship the 1%ers have with the city. This includes several newly-appointed and former members of the school board, ie. outgoing Deborah Quazzo and incoming Mark Furlong.

The mayor is already working to strike a deal to skip another pension payment.

LaRaviere provided some data:

“Of the 50 highest-performing schools in Chicago, all 50 are public schools that were here before he [Rahm Emanuel] arrived,” he said in the four-and-a-half-minute video, referring to NWEA scores. “Of the 20 lowest-performing schools in Chicago, 13 of them – over half – are turnaround and charter schools, which are cornerstones of the Rahm Emanuel education reform agenda.”

--Fred Klonsky

But the main target of the evening was "sociopath" Gov. Rauner who somehow finds it politically advantageous to shutter prisons, close museums, cut funding for kids with epilepsy, and increase co-pays for parents using the Childcare Program, while preserving tax breaks for wealthy pals.

Lewis made it clear that there's lots riding on whether city Dems like Emanuel and Madigan are willing to go to war with the governor over his cuts -- including the outcome of contract negotiations with the CTU and other unions. While it's too early to talk strike, she made it clear that the union is doing the necessary educational work among its members and parents. She expressed fear that class size in city schools could go up to "50 students per class" under Rauner's budget plan. 

Best aha moment came when Lewis suggested, half-jokingly I suspect, that LaRaviere run for mayor. Some of us didn't take it as a joke and many were visibly moved by his personal narrative after Mick Dumke asked what led him to become a principal.

Rahm's rich pals throw good money after bad

The Griffins, Ken and Ann.

How can a guy who just pissed away millions of his own campaign money say anything about anyone else's lack of a financial plan? 

In just three days, Rahm's billionaire pals have dumped another $1.3M into his sputtering campaign. That should just about guarantee a victory for Chuy. Why do I say that? Every time Ken Griffin takes makes a dump, Rahm's poll numbers seem to fall. I'm not saying there's a causal relationship, but it's interesting nevertheless. Ken, a smart businessman must know this is a poor investment. The only thing I can figure is that he's trying to empty the bank account to keep ex-wife, Ann from getting it in the divorce settlement.

Others who donated from March 3 to March 6 include: Groupon co-founder Eric Lefkofsky, $200,000; Richard Melman, $100,000; and Jay B. Pritzker and M.K. Pritzker, who tossed in $50,000 each.

It does raise the question, where has all Rahm's money gone? Rememer, he had $30M in the tank, plus $2M in SuperDuperPAC money. Has he spent it all on my strength is my weakness ads? You know, the ones where Rahm's wearing a sweater and trying to smile. Heh, heh...

The man with the plan.

Well, those became laughing stock, so Axelrod's new ads will attack Chuy for not having a financial plan for the city. Almost laughable when you think about the state of the city's affairs under the current and previous mayor.

The Sun-Times Mark Brown has drunk the kool-aid:

If you were going to draw up a list of what Mayor Rahm Emanuel has done right and wrong over the past four years, his overall handling of city finances would have to go in the plus column.

What? Of course Brown gives no evidence to back up his silly statement.

Does he mean?...

• Millions of taxpayer dollars to build new arena for DePaul. 
• Tax breaks for the wealthiest and the big corporations. 
• Hidden taxes through red-light cameras in poor communities. 
• Unlawful pension busting and shorting the pension fund year after year.
• Replacing well-paying union jobs with minimum-wage jobs.
• Shifting city resources from the neighborhoods to downtown.
• Closing neighborhood schools. 
• Closing neighborhood health clinics. 
• TIF money going to corporate pals.
• Sending the city into massive debt which has destroyed its credit rating.
• The so-called "infrastructure trust" handouts to his banker pals. 

Whatever Mayor Garcia does on this, he can only go up. It's like taking over as manager of the Cubs. Rahm's revenue and regressive taxing approach has driven the city's economy into the dumper. If Rahm goes there, he will only be picking up a rock to drop on his own foot.

And besides -- how can a guy who just blew millions on failed campaign ads and is begging rich friends for millions more, say anything about anyone else's financial plan?