By Steve Rhodes
“Rep. Luis Gutierrez moved ever closer to a race for mayor Monday, arguing that Mayor Daley is besieged by corruption, has been in power too long and has wasted time and money on Millennium Park and attracting the 2016 Summer Olympics at the expense of public schools,” the Sun-Times reported – last May.
“Attention and focus and resources are not infinite. Every hour spent on the Olympics is an hour that could be spent on improving our schools. Every dollar used . . . is a dollar that could be redirected to improving the wages and salaries of our teachers,” Gutierrez said.
“Should I lead this city, I have no interest in my legacy being the number of visitors to a beautiful lakefront park or the year the Olympics came to Chicago. It would be how many more kids graduated, how many quality teachers we hire and how many new schools were built.”
It was, as Crain’s put it, “a wide-ranging attack.”
Now, Gutierrez has taken it back.
So the question is: What did he get?
Daley reportedly asked Gutierrez for his endorsement at a private breakfast a month ago. According to Gutierrez, he got the mayor’s unwavering support for immigration reform in return. Meaning what, Daley will lobby his old pal Obama and tell him that 700-mile Mexican fence the senator voted in favor of isn’t such a good idea? And last I heard, the mayor wasn’t really involved in the immigration reform debate.
Obama is right about one thing: The smallness of our politics. That’s why they call him Little Luis.
Luis Jackson
“The mayor cannot have it both ways,” Jesse Jackson Jr. said in a statement in July. “He can’t boast about being a hands-on mayor who guides the city that works, yet simultaneously claim to be unaware or naive about the corruption and criminality that is occurring within his administration and multiple city departments.”
And then Jackson also turned small.
Dorothy In Oz
“I find it very disconcerting that [Gutierrez] can say what he said nine months ago in disparaging the record of Mayor Daley and be siding with him,” mayoral challenger Dorothy Brown said. “What has changed in the last nine months?”
The rules of engagement.
Crown His Ass
Coming soon: “Brown Endorses Daley: Says He’s Rooting Out Corruption.”
Abe Obama
The Obama Madness continues, with Eric Zorn arguing today that Lincoln was no Obama. Plus, the blatant ridiculousnesses in Obama’s announcement speech. To be posted shortly on our Politics page as a follow-up to The Obama Kool-Aid Report.
Parent Trap
The Sun-Times editorial board blames the parents of the four dead teens for the horrific car crash in Oswego. See, if they were as good of parents as the editorial board members are, they would have made sure their kids were in bed at a decent hour. Or at least dialed their cell phones more often. Good Lord.
Ward Night
Three of the four candidates running for alderman in the 7th Ward appeared on Chicago Tonight last night.
The incumbent is Darcel Beavers, installed recently by her father, Bill, the hog with the big nuts.
Despite her lineage, Beavers actually appeared to be a knowledgeable, competent person. If you like the status quo.
Beavers is also the preferred candidate of Wal-Mart.
She did, however, make a strong case that wage laws should be set by state and federal government, and that unions should organize Wal-Marts after they open their stores – though the obstacles to doing that erected in the last couple of decades have all but outlawed labor organizing in some sectors of the economy.
Still, Beavers did a far better job than the mayor has done on that side of the issue. She didn’t, for example, accuse those who support living wages of being racists.
Sandi Jackson, wife of Jesse Jr., is the union candidate. She also pledged to work more closely with the police command in the ward to bring more law enforcement resources to bear. She also questioned whether the ward had enough beat cops.
Beavers’ response was pretty lame. “No one in the city council can change the beat districts by themselves.”
No, but redrawing the city’s beats is an issue the council – and the media – has let the mayor slide on. It should have happened more than a decade ago, when the issue was first broached.
Ron David, a 25-year police veteran and the other candidate appearing on the panel, bested both his opponents on this one, proposing that beats be drawn the same size throughout the city, and then officers deployed within those beats according to need.
He also said “Blue lights do not answer calls and they don’t reduce crime, they just move it around.”
Beavers, of course, has Daley’s support. “He has spread the wealth all over the city,” she said.
“I agree with what he’s done downtown,” Jackson replied. “It’s beautiful. It’s fabulous . . . But what I would like to see is some of that largesse move further south . . . put Olympic Village venues south, maybe even on the USX Steel site . . . I’m not sure a lot of the folks within our community would agree with beautification . . . especially as you go down 75th.”
Another View
Joy Behar on The View yesterday, reacting to calls for Hillary Clinton to admit her vote on the war was wrong: “Shouldn’t Republicans admit they were wrong too? Why is it just on the Democrats?”
Trucker Caps, Cowboy Hats
Introducing Matt Cook and John Dorr, who hang their hats at IIT and spin some damn mean country.
The Beachwood Tip Line: Let the conversation begin.
Posted on February 13, 2007