By John Kass

December 16, 2022

What’s up with the breathless Chicago news media reports about those mayoral polls?

Money. It’s all about money.

No candidate is over 30 percent. Chicago voters are exhausted by Mayor Lori Lightfoot, exhausted from the strain of the November elections and exhausted wondering if they’ll get shot or hijacked while driving to Walgreens, or robbed at gunpoint like Diana DeJacimo, who was robbed at gunpoint in broad daylight in Lincoln Park while walking her dog Jasper.

They don’t want to deal with politics now, with visions of Christmas sugar plums dancing in their heads.

The wise candidate gives exhausted voters a break. But some desperately need to be humanized, which is why Mayor Lori Lightfoot—she of the idiotic pepperoni pizza delivery ads–has just put out emotional spots showing her getting and weepy over family.

Feelings.

Will mayoral tears and trembling mayoral lips trump Chicago’s violent crime wave? We’ll see.

But I’d bet that those of you attracted to the political blood sport and main event of the Chicago Mayoral Campaign have picked up on those stories about the mayoral polls.

Do those urgent poll stories, and Lightfoot’s tears address the problems faced by mayoral candidate Chuy Garcia and his benefactor, the freshly indicted Sam Bankman-Fried.

You’ve seen Bankman-Fried in the news. He’s the Crypto King and megabucks Democratic donor with the bad “Welcome Back Kotter” haircut.

First,  though, consider those Chicago mayoral poll stories delivered with breathless appeal.

These are used by candidates to squeeze out campaign cash from political supporters before Christmas. All you need are helpful reporters and editors to squeeze the chumbolones.

Chicago politics really hasn’t changed much here since my grandfather Papou Yianni sold vegetables from horse drawn trucks on the West Side, and since Mayor Big Bill Thompson danced to the Chicago Outfit’s tune.

The Outfit made hundreds of millions of dollars from feeding beer, whiskeys and gin to Prohibition-era America. But the Outfit has been greatly diminished by the feds.

And now the Mexican drug cartels have made Chicago a distribution hub, but the cartels are playing politics the Chicago Way in Chicago.

But don’t worry. Since you’re reading this at johnkassnews.com, you’re not a chumbolone. And this is a No Chumbolone zone ™.

Pardon me, but what’s another word for chumbolone?

Victim.

Now, back to those breathless early poll stories on TV, radio and print. What are they really all about?

Money, and trolling supporters of this candidate or that one, and squeezing cash from them in fundraisers so the candidates can match Lori Lightfoot and get their messages on TV.

Consider this breathless report by WTTW (Wilmette Talking to Winnetka) News the other day:

“U.S. Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García is the “front runner” in the race for Chicago mayor, according to a new poll commissioned by the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150 obtained Monday by WTTW News.”

Wait. What?

If that’s not breathless, what is?

Wasn’t Local 150 the same union that backed conservative Republican Jeanne Ives for governor?

Yes, the very same. Now Local 150 is backing the ultra-lefty Chuy Garcia for mayor of Chicago.

Hmm.

And no mention of that sea change in the breathless news account?

I have nothing personal against Chuy. I’ve known him for years. And although I’m in disagreement with his hard-left Chiapatista political views he’s always been a gentleman.

Remember that Garcia’s 2015 campaign for mayor against then incumbent Rahm Emmanuel was torched by the same WTTW.

It happened in a televised mayoral debate between then Cook County Commissioner Chuy Garcia and Rahm on WTTW.

Emanuel’s campaign was furiously peddling the fruits of his oppo researchers, but so were Garcia’s, though Emanuel’s association with Obama and the Daley/Obama/Rahm mouthpiece David Axelrod were providing shields.

But the shields were weakening. And Rahm was getting pounded over shaky municipal finances and crime. Obama couldn’t save him.

Then debate moderator Phil Ponce asked the one question the Rahm camp was praying for.

“With respect,” Ponce said pointedly, turning to Garcia. “A lot of voters might wonder, commissioner…If you can’t keep your own son out of a gang, how can you steer the city away from gangs and violence?”

The liberal audience groaned. But I thought there was a thrill running up Rahm’s leg. He hardly showed any reaction, he was stone faced,  almost as Rahm knew beforehand that WTTW which prides  itself on being a beacon of liberal virtue was going to put Chuy’s political head on a pike.

Mission accomplished: the story about Chuy’s gangbanger son was out. And Chuy would not become mayor.

Later, Ponce told me he regretted asking the question, but by then the damage was done. Chuy was toast. Rahm was saved courtesy of WTTW and won re-election.

Yet before the next election, Rahm was driven out when Chicago learned that Rahm had suppressed the Laquan McDonald police shooting video to get elected. He decided in 2018 not to seek re-election. Why? Even Obama could not save him then. And before the Rahm-Chuy mayoral campaign, if Chicago had seen the police shooting video, Rahm would not have been mayor. Simple as that. That’s why Rahm approved a $5 million settlement with Laquan McDonald’ family the Chicago Way. And the issue was suppressed through the Rahm-Chuy campaign.

If the video hadn’t been suppressed, then Chuy Garcia would have been elected mayor.

Chuy was also the subject of a Chicago Sun Times column by Mary Mitchell, writing off a story by reporter Dan Mihalopoulos about Chuy’s son attacking police, yet getting preferred pro-bono  (free) treatment from one of the city’s largest law firms, Mayer Brown LLP. All this happened when Chuy was Boss Toni Preckwinkle’s second-in-command at the Cook County Board of Commissioners.

Lori Lightfoot was a partner at Mayer Brown. Will she return to them when her current nightmare is over? Will they have her?  That’s anybody’s guess. Besides, without the right opponent, she just might win.

And was the story about Chuy’s son worthy of consideration? Yes, of course. Chicago was beginning its rapid descent into the chaos of violent gang crime. And anyone who tells you otherwise is playing you for a fool.

Just after that Chuy poll story was released breathlessly to WTTW, WGN, Fox Chicago, and print other outlets, another Chuy story hatched in the stagnant ponds of Chicago and Washington politics.

That story wiggled to the surface and stuck its lips above water to breathe.

It was a story reported by veteran and savvy Sun Times City Hall reporter Fran Spielman. The headline?

“Lightfoot Supporter Questions Indicted Crypto Billionaire’s Donation to Garcia.”

Crain’s Greg Hinz got into it, too: “Mayoral Foes Rip Chuy Garcia Over Crypto Ties.”

Both stories raised questions about Garcia as the beneficiary of $200,000 from a political group heavily funded by Samuel Bankman-Fried. SBF’s money was turned dark, and it went to help Chuy through a political action committee.

Hmm.

I tip my hat to Spielman, Hinz and WIND-AM 560 radio host Dan Proft for their interest in Sam Bankman-Fried, the puffy Crypto billionaire who played video games while being interviewed.

Democrat politicians loved SBF because he dangled big chunks of dark money for the November mid-term elections. He was indicted the other day on federal charges that he defrauded and stole billions from would-be crypto investors. The fools.

SBF, as he’s called, will most likely be the albatross around the Democrat necks going forward because he loved to pass out cash to the Democrat Party. And they loved taking it because they love money.

He’s the Democrat Party’s second largest donor behind billionaire lefty George Soros. Before the SBF fantasy collapsed, and the money disappeared, SBF had promised to bankroll the Democrat 2024 campaigns to the tune of a billion dollars.

He has already handed out somewhere between $1 billion-$500 million dollars in dark money to Democrats for the last campaign.

How Chicagoans many union teachers and other rank-and-file Democrats lost their retirement or investment money to satisfy the Democrat hunger for political power through SBF?

Do we just grab the popcorn and enjoy the lefties from Lightfoot’s camp devouring the lefty, Chuy?

Or do we wait and make more popcorn and wonder if the woke Chicago media will ever go in-depth to examine that one, and how the various progressive camps attack Chuy? Or not?

And just as Sam Bankman-Fried was set to testify this week before Congress about his crypto schemes, he was indicted on federal charges by the Biden U.S. Justice Department.

New York Post columnist Miranda Devine smells a rat. So do I. Devine is the author of “Laptop From Hell,” the book about Hunter Biden. She’s our guest on the next edition of the Chicago Way podcast.

Biden Justice could easily have waited a day to indict, so SBF could tell his story on the record and under oath. But I don’t think Democrats who took his money wanted to hear him testify. Perhaps Democrats wanted him to hush his mouth and save them from embarrassment.

In her recent column, Devine asks:

“But wouldn’t you think, if you were a prosecutor, that you would be bitterly disappointed to have missed the opportunity of seeing garrulous young Sam testify under oath for hours, before you arrested him? What difference would a few more hours have made?”

Unless the Democrats pulling prosecutors’ strings didn’t want to hear from fat young Sam. Who are among those progressive Democrats in Congress who didn’t want to hear about how they used his dark money? I know of one:

 U.S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, candidate for mayor of Chicago.

(Copyright 2022 John Kass)

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