Vote like the life of Chicago depends on it — because it does.
by Steve Huntley
March 31, 2023
Every election is important. And it’s not unusual for media hyperbole to label a pending election the most critical one ever. Usually that’s overblown rhetoric. But it’s hard to argue that Tuesday’s mayoral primary runoff isn’t one of the most momentous elections in Chicago’s history — one that will decide whether the city that used to work can survive to maybe work again another day.
For several weeks now Chicagoans have witnessed a bruising, bare-knuckle, boisterous campaign through debates, voter forums, competing news conferences touting endorsements by this and that group or politician, and campaign ads blaring on all channels funded by millions of dollars.
By now Chicago voters should know the candidates and the issues.
And know what’s at stake.
Two women attacked and hit with a bottle by an assailant in the Loop in broad daylight. Armed robbers committing 18 holdups in five days across the city, including in once safe neighborhoods like Lakeview and Lincoln Park. Mail carriers robbed at gunpoint in West Rogers Park and on the West Side. A15-year-old girl sexually assault on a CTA train. A man killed in a Rogers Park home invasion. Robbery and carjacking sprees in Lakeview, West Town and Wicker Park during one night — a reminder that there were a total of 1,600 armed carjackings in the city last year. A man arrested with 38 stolen catalytic converters in his car. Two Logan Square banks robbed by the same man. School-age kids murdered in the streets.
On and on it goes, the litany of crime outrages recorded daily by the CWB Chicago crime-reporting website. It constitutes a dreary diary of a city gripped in an existential crisis threatening to deteriorate into a death spiral.
That’s the overwhelming issue facing voters — and the most consequential challenge facing the next mayor of Chicago.
In one corner is Paul Vallas, a proven reformer, the grandson of Greek immigrants with law enforcement officers in the family, and a thinker/planner/manager with a concrete plan to not just rebuild the ranks of the Chicago Police Department but to reinvigorate its morale with a pledge to have the back of the cop of the beat.
In the other corner is Brandon Johnson, a progressive who can’t run away from his defund-the-police advocacy. He’s a functionary of the Chicago Teachers Union who would promote the metastasis of malignant union power throughout city government, dooming hopes for a revival of Chicago as a vibrant, safe metropolis. To that end the CTU is pouring millions of dollars into Johnson’s campaign to keep Chicago on course for descending into hell.
Again, the central issue is the crime pandemic bleeding Chicago.
Yes, doing something about the city’s failing schools is important.
Yes, the need for investment in Chicago’s business economy and its neighborhoods is vital.
But neither will happen — can’t happen — unless the streets are safe, the neighborhoods are safe, the Loop and the myriad business districts across the city are safe.
It’s as simple as that. The choice in the mayoral campaign is as simple as that.
While the campaign has been mostly what you’d expect, charges and counter-charges, one especially revealing moment came in a debate in late March. The candidates were asked about Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, one of the George Soros-backed prosecutors with soft-on-crime policies that return criminals to menace city streets across the nation.
In what crime-weary Chicagoans would call a classic example of understatement, Vallas observed that Foxx “has not been aggressive at keeping dangerous criminals off the street.”
Johnson was having none of that. He called Foxx “a part of the type of reform that’s needed”— in effect doubling down on his defund-the-police and criminal friendly philosophy.
The choice couldn’t be clearer.
The same is true for education. Back when Vallas ran Chicago schools, math and reading scores rose. Things changed as the Chicago Teachers Union rose in power, with less than 11 percent of black students now meeting state reading standards, and math scores are even worse, in the single digits, as reported by Wirepoints. For Hispanic kids, the record is not much better — 18 percent reading at grade level in Illinois.
Who would want to import the CTU’s incompetency into the wider city government?
Better educational outcomes would combat one of the root causes of crime by giving young people the knowledge and skills to help them lift themselves out of poverty. To that end, the proven education reformer Vallas wants to empower parents with more school choice.
Likewise for economic issues. Johnson supports economy-crippling proposals for almost $1 billion in new taxes. Further evidence of his harmful economic ideas is far leftwing and socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, who never saw a tax increase he didn’t like no matter how damaging to economic prosperity, showing up in Chicago to back Johnson. No one would be safe from Johnson’s lust for higher taxes, not even people who don’t live in Chicago. Johnson’s schemes once included a nutty idea to tax suburbanites.
In contrast, Vallas has no interest in raising taxes, understanding that innovation and entrepreneurship in a thriving private economy are the sources of wealth to increase city tax collections.
It’s no wonder that the city’s top business organizations are backing him.
Also endorsing him is Sen. Dick Durbin who noted that when Vallas was Chicago’s budget director and CEO of Chicago schools, “He closed a projected $1.3 billion deficit. He balanced six consecutive budgets. … He left the (school) district with labor peace, no teachers strikes, fully funded pensions, $1.2 billion in cash reserves.”
Durbin has known Vallas for 40 years and his endorsement in effect brands as a lie Johnson’s repeated allegation that Vallas is some kind of closet Republican.
In an excellent analysis of the campaign, veteran political and public policy consultant Thom Serafin noted that only 35 percent of eligible voters cast ballots in the Feb. 28 primary. That means nearly two-thirds of the city registered voters — more than one million — sat out that election.
To repeat, nearly two thirds of voters stayed away. Given the stakes for Chicago’s future, that’s hard to fathom. There are always apathetic voters who register but somehow forget or don’t care to vote. Others maybe never get over being undecided about the candidates.
At this stage of the campaign, it’s hard to believe anyone could be undecided with two candidates offering such diametrically opposed and contrasting views of how to tackle Chicago’s crime crisis.
Let’s hope the hard fought campaign conducted by Vallas and Johnson and the grave risks threatening Chicago’s future stimulate more Chicagoans to come out for the runoff primary.
This is an election that matters and matters big time. Vote like the life of Chicago depends on it — because it does.
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Steve Huntley, a retired Chicago journalist now living in Austin, Texas, has contributed other pieces to johnkassnews, from an examination of the secret jail for Christopher Columnbus and other politically problematic public art to an essay on Americans suffering from Joe Biden gas pain.
For almost three decades Huntley spent most of his career in Chicago journalism at the Chicago Sun-Times, where he was a feature writer, metro reporter, night city editor, metropolitan editor, editorial page editor and a columnist for the opinion pages.
Before that he was a reporter and editor with United Press International (UPI) in the South and Chicago, and Chicago bureau chief and a senior editor in Washington with U.S. News & World Report. Northwestern University Press has issued soft cover and eBook editions of Knocking Down Barriers: My Fight for Black America by Truman K. Gibson Jr. with Steve Huntley, a memoir of a Chicagoan who was a member of President Roosevelt’s World War II Black Cabinet working to desegregate the military.
Comments 27
I do not understand why Americans are so complacent and are willing to lose their Freedoms that this Great Country has provided for us. Washington is a mess, they Democrats have weaponized the IRS, FBI, and DOJ. They told us they would do just that and we laughed it off and now they have done just that. We must save CHICAGO from their clutches and Vote like our lives depend on it and they do. Even the Senator has supported Vallas. Look at the TV they have hired incompetent people to run our Institutions, they have no clue as to what they are doing, but they are what the Liberals want. Socialism is in America already folks, wake up we are going into the direction of Venezuela the door is worthless already. What would it take for people to wake up and be responsible for their Country and the people they Vote for. What has happened to Honor and Common Sense. Please investigate the School Board and Library Board folks running for those important seats. Save the young they are into drugs and sex and no one seems to care. Please save the children and our COUNTRY. VOTE.
“Save the young they are into drugs and sex and no one seems to care!” It’s reefer madness!
Here is everything you need to know about “Rigatony.”
First: He is coward. His real name is Tony Cesare.
Second: He is a felonious identity thief. Until we revealed his deception he lied saying that he was the proprietor of a bar in Wisconsin. He listed that on his Facebook profile. We got the screenshots. They have never hear of Tony Cesare there.
Stay tuned for the images.
Yes we have socialism in America, Helen: FOR THE CORPORATIONS, who got massive reduction in taxes by GOP! The rest of us get capitalism: dog eat dog capitalism, laissez-faire, ‘buyer be ware’. Forever cancer causing chemicals in our food and water. Train wrecks destroying towns towns. Outlandish military spending (half our current budget) to feed corporations that make weapons TO KILL PEOPLE. That’s our economy: making war. And then these corporations kick back money (bribes) to elected officials who vote for the taxes that go for war making. Meanwhile the infrastructure of this country goes to hell. Once great cities now a shell of themselves.
BTW even if Vallas gets in, the city council will block his moves. Face it the city is dead, never to return.
Neither issue, crime or education help the Democrats, especially the race hustling, “progressives”, who, in fact, are more authoritarian than progressive, or liberal. They are so tied up in this elite, perverse power grab that’s going on, where corporations and oligarchs use identity politics, lies, and distortions, to grab money, power, and to bully the very working people they claim to care about again and again.
If you look at CPS, it’s a glaring example of the metastasis that’s set in. CTU loves the children so much that they didn’t want to sit in school with them. They refuse to stand up for the children and fight to impose structure, discipline, and high expectations, as they want to avoid both of these things themselves.
In many of the schools, there is a microcosm of what’s going on on the cities. The students are running amok just as the criminals are running amok in our streets. IF a child is not even moderately proficient in Reading, Writing, and Mathematics, this is a crisis situation. Yet, in CPS, with over 25,000 per student, there are cries of “equity”, “systemic racism”, they waste time with identity politics rather than teach them to read and think for themselves.
I hated Bush, but his term, “The soft bigotry of low expectations, permeates the city, it’s schools, and Democratic politics in general. The people are stupid, and are victims, being exploited by racists, and only those who genuflect and bend to the will of the liberal mob deserve to be heard, and “people of color” deserve jobs, perks, and promotions even if they doing have the education, knowledge, or experience, let alone the competence.
If the kids cannot read, it’s the fault of the teachers and the parents. This is a crisis. Both should be demanding focus on educating these kids, not babysitting, and certainly not indoctrination of any kind, excepting the concepts of freedom guaranteed in our constitution.
If the streets are not safe, it’s the responsibility of the city’s leaders and the residents to demand accountability for the criminals, no matter what color or gender they are, or “identify” as. If your child cannot read, if your child is a menace, you are majority responsible. It’s time to hold the fathers responsible for the children they foist on the world.Single parent homes produce the majority of our gang members, car jackers, and drop outs. These numbers must be shared with the population and a massive campaign, political, economic, community, and social, needs to be brought to bare to help these kids as we are already spending too many resources as a band aid to cover up this hedonism and debauchery of young men, who have their fun and saddle poor, uneducated women to live off of the welfare system, and the police become their parents.
The choice in the mayoral election is very clear. If you want more of the same, vote Brandon. If you want someone who will throw himself into the job, set reasonable, attainable goals, and demand accountability, Paul Vallas is your choice. Reject the identity politics, silence the race hustlers, who do far more harm to poor people than good.
It’s time to demand that everyone on a public payroll, elected or unelected, bring value in exchange for their pay.
Very well written thoughts! Right on!
It’s socialism/communism vs. prosperity/freedom. Good vs. evil, simple as that.
Great column, Mr. Huntley.
As a 69 year old life long resident of Chicago, I am in total agreement that Tuesday is the most important Election Day in the history of my city.
The last four years have shown how socialism can destroy the life blood of this city, and if this continues, it will destroy whatever future this once beautiful city has. GOD HELP US!
Great column, as always. The differences between Vallas and Johnson couldn’t be more transparent; yet, we have the most apathetic voters. I saw the poll that stated 13% were still undecided and couldn’t believe it! Either people are just keeping things close to the vest, or they really are ignorant regarding what’s at stake for Chicago.
Vote Vote Vote!
Thanks Steve for your article that will hopefully inspire voters to get off their butts and vote for Vallas. Otherwise, goodbye Chicago. But I still feel the bigger challenge to crime prevention is Kim Foxx and Judge Evans, who, funded by George Soros, keep freeing criminals to roam our streets without fear of reprisal, arrest or incarceration. That will be the elephant in the room with which the next mayor will have to deal. Of course if Johnson is elected, nothing will improve, and more criminals will be at large to inflict the citizens with untold crimes. He’ll send social workers to 911 crime scenes, to “diffuse the situation!” Right. That hasn’t worked well anywhere, and more cops are bailing out of the backward, upside down, police department of Chicago. Voters have to realize that, in fact, their lives depend upon Paul becoming the next mayor. We need all those “chumbolones” as JKass has named them, to get out and cast their ballots for Vallas….or else!
I wonder how many other JKN readers reluctantly moved away from Chicago decades ago, as I did. Did you imagine then that the city would turn into what it is now: a crime-and-tax hell ruled by Soros-backed criminal promotion and the teachers unions?
For the sake of the city I still love (and only barely dare to visit anymore), here’s a civic prayer for those of you who’ve been brave enough to remain in Chicago and smart enough to subscribe to John Kass’ column. I pray you vote for Vallas.
A Mayor Johnson would be even more devastating than Lightfoot: more tax dollars demanded from a dwindling productive base for the benefit of a deadbeat government, school bureaucracy and pension scam. Chicago really will become Detroit.
It hasn’t, that’s just the trope force fed and repeated to an older voter by grievance merchants and right wing media news outlets who push/reinforce the narrative of the ‘lawless blue run city.’ Is crime an issue? Yes. Post covid workers started staying home and the city lost its vibrancy, and crime that has always existed on the far South and West sides started creeping north. I love and work here, by your own admittance, you don’t. I haven’t crossed paths with ‘SOROS’ yet which surprises me since he is name dropped so often here. Whomever is our next mayor (and for the record I do like Vallas) needs to think bigger than crime or the manufactured ‘SOROS’ hysteria. The challenge is: “What does the American City look like post Covid, knowing that majority workers are remote at least 2-3 days a week?”
Riga-Tony — Actually George Soros is a real, if antique, neo-Marxist billionaire (not just a “name-dropped” character). His fortune has afforded him huge influence promoting crime and destruction in American cities. Are you unaware of John Kass’ 2020 criticism of Soros’ pernicious influence extending to Chicago, which was the beginning of his being howled out of the Tribune by leftist journalism censors? Do you know who is behind Kim Foxx’ presence as the advocate for repeat criminals? Are you trolling here or is this something worse?
This is the infamous interview on 60 min that tells the world who George Soros really is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Or9pYKMKgr0
As a Jew myself I am appalled. Maybe Mr. Cesare should have actually viewed this before he made his ignorant, stupid and inane comments regarding Mr. Soros.
Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful Dr Bruce, but I digress. Yes David, I’m aware that John Kass threw away a 30 year career as a respected locally focused journalist because, in an attempt to gain broader relevance with the MAGA crowd, decided to repeat the same tired ‘Soros World Villain’ anti-semitic tropes that are popular in far right wing circles. He got what he deserved, and beyond this small gathering of aging (Dr Bruce..) sycophants, he has become irrelevant. Ask yourself: what exactly would be the purpose of using your fortune to “promoting crime and destruction in American cities?” I’m sorry, I thought Austin Powers was a fiction, no idea “Dr Evil” was real! You’ve been duped into buying into the same anti-semitic boogeyman tropes that are pushed by grievance merchants like John, you should ask yourself why you are so vulnerable to the lie, maybe look into your heart. In the meantime you could contribute to Trump’s defense fund, I heard we was indicted for paying off a porn star he raw dogged while his third wife was pregnant (I’m certain Dr Buttface err.. Bruce is breaking open his penny jars..) If you are looking for a REAL villain, you might try Mar-A-Lago…
You are obviously living in a fantasy world. You need to go away and take your progressive communist ideologies with you. There is no room for evil in my country.
Soros = Evil
Everything that man supports turns to s%*#. “Money is the root of all evil.”
That’s poor math. It’s Trump = Evil x Loser + Convict = Never will be President again. Stop chasing manufactured boogeymen, focus on the real ones.
I remember when Richard J died in 1976 the feeling I had that I remember as a kid in High School was that the world was coming to an end. Daley was the only mayor I knew and somehow things worked. ever, but not really the worst either.
Mike Bilandic, Jane Byrne followed and things functioned somehow through a lot of ineptitude at times.
Then Harold Washington won in ‘83 vs the white hope (no, not Arne Duncan) Bernie Epton. First time I saw race used in politics. It was a little scary. No, it was a lot scary. What, a black mayor?? In Chicago…God help us. In the end, Harold wasn’t all that bad. Yeah, we had council wars, but the fact Washington was black, really in the end, didn’t really mean that much. In fact, I think Harold ended up being pretty good and was pretty sad when he died.
The council went into turmoil, remember ? Who will be picked to replace him ? The Black community wanted another black mayor and everyone else didn’t. Remember who was the initial leading choice ??? Yep, none other than Tim Evans ! Someone knew something even then and Gene Sawyer was picked as a compromise (after a brief stint for David Orr as interim during the chaos…blah). Not the best mayor but not exactly the worst. I guess a calming influence at the time. Richie and Rham. Richie in maybe a little too long and Rham a big disappointment. Then Lightfoot. Nuff said.
I go thru this because I remember Chicago was believed to be headed into a hole with Harold Washington at the helm. It was scary…it was a tough time. The city survived, and quite well. The world did not come to an end. This time though, it just might. It’s really not black vs white and I hope people don’t look at it that way. There were/are capable black candidates, the wrong one was the choice. This may end up not being just Chicago, but even State or Country. A message needs to be sent that this way of life in our future is not acceptable. Government needs to govern and that’s it. All need to benefit. And we need to get back to competence, experience and common sense rule over race, gender and big money. People need to wise up. Whatever happens here, the future looks bleak unless the dummies wake up. The scary feeling of a Harold Washington victory 40 years ago seems more like an upset stomach vs a heart attack now.
Harold was out of the mold of King Richard J, the first. He actually did good for the city. Like King Richard l, he knew the inner workings of the city, and how to deal with the council. Too bad he died.
Another great article, Mr. Huntley. The most important takeaway is your use of the term “diametrically opposed” in describing the two candidates. This is both very true and very obvious, and I hope Chicago voters pay attention.
To your point on the abysmal turnout for the primary- my Dad used to say “If you didn’t vote in the primary, you gave up your right to complain”, and that is as true today as when he first said it to me over 50 years ago when I missed voting at a primary.
Very excellent article, and hits on all cylinders . Every point made well and valid. I am praying enough sensible people who can see beyond their race/political party tinted glasses well enough to understand what the end result of voting for Johnson would entail will show up at the polls.
Sadly, my opinion of the percentage of Americans who think beyond the latest “in things” and soundbites has been going down for years. I hope we will see a Mayor Vallas. This is a watershed moment.
Today’s Tribune rag asked the editorial question: “Which unions will our next mayor be beholden to ?
Johnson = CTU and SEIU.
Vallas = Firefighters and Cops (among others).
Not a hard choice, is it?
I see the socialist didn’t bother paying his water bills until AFTER he was chosen to run for mayor. Typical.
Well Written. What is shocking and should deeply concern parents and voters to the point of panic: Less than 12% of the students (by wire point) can meet minimum requirements for their grade level. Yet an on-time graduation rate of 79%. Add in the push to lower academic standards not only for black kids but overall. In a decade we will have a work force that is at near illiterate level unable to read or write effectively. How will these graduates compete and find jobs that pay above poverty level? The consequences are very chilling.
As long as these “graduates” vote for the correct party, we will continue down this wormhole. Every Illinois voter needs to see the Wirepoints school report card. Illinois ranked one of the worst for education in the nation, and yet the democrats want to abolish any sort of private education voucher or tax credit. The way I see it, the chances of a kid going through the Illinois public schools and being literate are deteriorating every day. Our state government is helping to make this possible, letting the unions run the show. When the CTU can take Money from its members and funnel it to a political candidate without their consent, we really have a problem. There is so much wrong here, it boggles the mind…
As long as these “graduates” vote for the correct party, we will continue down this wormhole. Every Illinois voter needs to see the Wirepoints school report card. Illinois ranked one of the worst for education in the nation, and yet the democrats want to abolish any sort of private education voucher or tax credit. The way I see it, the chances of a kid going through the Illinois public schools and being literate are deteriorating every day. Our state government is helping to make this possible, letting the unions run the show. When the CTU can take Money from its members and funnel it to a political candidate without their consent, we really have a problem. There is so much wrong here, it boggles the mind…