By John Kass

August 30^th, 2026

Years ago when I first began covering Chicago politics–first for The Daily Calumet (America’s oldest community newspaper)– we had a wild dog problem in the South Chicago neighborhood.

The Cal had offices at 91st and Baltimore. From the corner window near my desk, you could smoke–the smoke drafting out through bullet holes in the window–and look down upon my favorite lunch place, Sonny’s Inn restaurant–great burgers and beer and tips on the horse races.

And from that window you could see the packs of feral dogs.

Sometimes only three or four, sometimes more. Sometimes big-headed pit bulls, raised to guard drug houses, prone to kill kids and bred for fighting. Sometimes yellow dogs wild for generations, some well-fed pets that escaped from their backyards. All did the same thing before fighting. They presented by walking in circles, sniffing, tails up, stiff-legged, the way candidates for mayor of Chicago present themselves.

Even viciously game though now delusional presidential hopeful and angry  Chihuahua former Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the Tiny Dancer, flash their millions and millions in political cash wielded out of mostly Jewish sources, and this cash is trumpeted by establishment political reporters and combine mouthpieces picking winners and losers even before the people get a chance to cast ballots. Now that Rahm has joined his friend and fellow Obama apparatchik David Axelrod in betraying and disavowing  Israel, those fat campaign coffers are expected to shrink.

And well they should. Tiny Dancer can’t credibly run for president with the Laquan McDonald issue around his neck, but perhaps he and Axelrod can star in a new movie “The Democrats Without a Country.”

Readers have been messaging me on “X” asking my thoughts on the Chicago mayoral race as Chicago circles the financial drain. And I’ve got some views to share.

The city’s finances are a disaster, broken by a series of poor left wing Democrat management and corrupt politics. Chicago has been savaged by predatory machines  from the Chicago Teachers Union to the radical Marxism of Cook County Democratic Party chair Toni Preckwinkle –who with her ally George Soros and protege Kim Foxx–are most responsible for the massive home building boom in Northwest Indiana as Chicago refugees hope to flee all that Preckwinkle legacy caused with violent crime in Cook County. All of this has contributed to a sense of exhaustion and helplessness of the people. As my late friend Tom Donovan would say “People vote with their feet.” And this they have done in droves.

Chicago can’t pretend it wasn’t warned. I warned them as did others. But enough Chicago voters were happy to play racial and tribal politics. Paul Vallas was apparently too white for them. Though he’s a lifelong Democrat, leftists at the Tribune and Sun Times portrayed him as something of a MAGA Republican. It was ridiculous but Mayor Johnson and Chicago Teachers Union radicals won’t call foul on the media. Chicago media happily carries their water. There are no conservatives left in Chicago media, so the political prostitutes have no fear of being shamed.

So what is the status of the race for mayor of the once-great city that I still love? WGN-TV’s political editor Tahman Bradley and host of “The Point” asked me for the lede on the mayor’s race: “Chicago is broke and circling the drain and I don’t think there is anyone who can help it.”

That’s it. Want a happy party and balloons? Go ask Mayor Johnson and CTU boss Stacy Davis Gates. But I’m not celebrating with Chicago dying. I’m not gorging down plates of ice cream and candy. Besides, I’m recovering from yet another damn stroke. Yeah, that makes four at least. But like old Laertes, I still have a few spears left to throw and  columns to write and podcasts with WGN radio producer Jeff Carlin to do. The doctors have switched my meds, I’m now on stronger blood thinners and Repatha. I’m walking hard with Betty every day. I’m working with my therapists to improve. Why? I want to work and I want to live.

One of the things I can do is talk and use my big mouth to either get me out of problems, or help build new pathways for the brain and that’s what I’m trying to do right now. Bradley drove over to my house and we did an interview on politics on his program The Point on WGN. I leave the link active here and I hope you don’t judge me too harshly. Still recovering, and a day or so after appearing on The Point, I invited my friend Dan Proft to sit in with Jeff Carlin and me on the Chicago Way podcast and talk politics.

One thing is clear: Businessman Willie Wilson is in the race. I admit bias here. I like the man and I like his story. He grew up terribly poor and worked on his daddy’s farm in Louisiana. As a kid his job was to plow the fields so the family could eat. Wilson’s mule was named “Mister Charlie.” All the black people in Louisiana named their mules “Mister Charlie,” as a protest against racism. They called all the white men Charlie.

My father plowed his family’s fields in Greece with their mule named Truman, out of respect for the 33rd president who provided the Marshall Plan.

Mayor Brandon Johnson is a clueless jester with that pointy head.

I will say Susana Mendoza is an impressive candidate. I like her, and her heart  is in the right place, and she loves the city. She’s not doing it for cynical reasons.  She’s a worker, not a show pony like Alexi Giannoulias, I don’t wonder about Alexi.

About Mendoza, . I’ve always liked it when she confronted Dick Mell’s tough guy John Quarters Boyle. I got a kick out of that. Quarters was a tough guy from the northside political 33rd Ward Democratic machine run by the Dick Mell, the father-in-law of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.  Susana chased him down after an accident. Apparently he would try to flee and she called the cops on him and I thought if all the people of the city had her attitude there would be no crime anymore, so that’s Susana her heart’s in the right place, and Willie’s heart is in the right place too.

What about Alexi Giannoulias? I’ll never forget the photo I saw a year or so ago, from Alexi’s twitter feed on the carpet with his cute socks like an adolescent girl.  Someone must of told him it was a good way for him to connect with voters. I thought of my father and his father both shouting at him “ You should act like a man”

What would Chicago Heights mob associate Michael “Jaws” Giorango say?

And this one thinks he can run Chicago? What a joke. Go pose for another photo, go hang out with Barack Obama, but stay out of the race for mayor.

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About the author: John Kass spent decades as a political writer and news columnist in Chicago working at a major metropolitan newspaper. He is co-host of The Chicago Way podcast. And he just loves his “No Chumbolone” hat, because johnkassnews.com is a “No Chumbolone” Zone where you can always get a cup of common sense.

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