* 6:44 pm - Sources say that Chicago City Clerk Miguel del Valle told several aldermen and others today that he’s running for mayor.
Besides the dynamic the former state Senator brings to the race, del Valle’s move also means the city clerk’s office is now up for grabs.
Del Valle had only $948.08 in his campaign account as of the end of June, but he has reportedly told friends that he will quickly ramp up. He reportedly wants to get petitions out on the street this weekend.
* For a bit of comparison, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart had $191,855.67 in his account as of June 30. Sandi Jackson had $66,966.37 in her aldermanic account and $15,716.47 in her ward account. Rahm Emanuel has $1.2 million.
A voter can sign as many mayoral nominating petitions as he or she wishes, but only the first one counts, as Chicago Board of Elections Commission spokesman Jim Allen reminds us. The second, third and all subsequent signatures are technically invalid and will be erased if challenged.
This means the first mayoral candidate to knock on the doors on your block not only stands the best chance of getting valid signatures, but it also means that any signatures he gathers above the minimum are signatures that other hopefuls can’t get.
“I got a call from [someone close to Emanuel] telling me to expect a call from Rahm,” said one prominent Chicago Democrat, who had yet to hear from him as of Wednesday night.
“My sense is he’s got to do an assessment as to what his support would be and what his campaign would look like. . .He’s not in Chicago, so that makes it tough for him to know what people here are thinking,” added the person, who agreed to lobby others on Emanuel’s behalf, if he decides to run.
Emanuel himself, according to administration sources, knows he must make a decision relatively soon to be a viable player back home. But he doesn’t feel that waiting a while will compromise his chances.
Something that I’m not sure anyone has really talked about is the longer this talk lasts about a mayoral bid, the less influence he’s gonna have in the White House and DC in general. He’s gonna become a lame duck pretty darned fast, if he hasn’t already.
* 8:06 pm - OK, this has to be the goofiest write-up about the pending Chicago mayoral race I’ve seen so far. The Washington Times quotes a DC/Pennsylvania-based Republican consultant and a San Francisco-based Democratic consultant about Chicago politics. Sheesh.
* 4:39 pm - An organizer of the Congresswoman Debbie Halvorson fundraiser this Sunday in Chicago featuring Rahm Emanuel has just sent out a notice saying that the event has been postponed “due to circumstances which are probably obvious to most.”
So, no Rahmapalooza this Sunday, I’m afraid. They’re looking at September 26th instead.
* Meanwhile, this could give you something to chew on tonight. From Greg Hinz…
Gov. Pat Quinn, his election effort already reeling, appears to have suffered a staggering blow with Mayor Richard M. Daley’s stunning decision to retire.
There only is so much political energy in any town, even Chicago, and now all the energy here is going into the wide-open race for mayor.
That leaves little if anything for Mr. Quinn, who badly needs to rally Chicago’s Democratic base if he’s to get back into the contest with GOP nominee Bill Brardy.
It ain’t over yet, not with two months of campaigning left. But Mr. Daley’s oxygen-sucking move is the last thing Illinois’ rookie governor needed.
Republican Mark Kirk’s newest ad, which is set to go up on the air this week, according to a campaign spokesman, is positive and doesn’t mention his Democratic opponent.
“In a country where too many just vote the party line, there are only a few thoughtful, independent leaders who do what’s right for us,” the female announcer says in the ad.
The 30-second spot, which paints Kirk as “independent and effective,” was produced by Larry McCarthy of McCarthy Marcus Hennings.
*** UPDATE - 6:54 pm *** Just about every person I’ve talked to close to the Giannoulias campaign believes this ad will not run more than a few times. Even some Republicans say they don’t expect this to be up long. We’ll see.
Sen. Roland Burris, D-Ill., who has run for nearly every major office in the state, says he is not interested in replacing Richard M. Daley as mayor of Chicago.
“No, I’m not interested in running for mayor of Chicago,” Burris told reporters before he toured Southwind Park in Springfield this morning.
“Certainly there’ll be talk. Fortunately, my name has not been mentioned, so that’s on the good side.
Asked why he won’t run, Burris said, “How much money do you got? Get $5 million and then talk to me.”
Chicago State University business professor Jonathan Jackson is also interested.
“I had not seriously considered it before but now I am,” Jonathan Jackson told the Defender. “I will take a strong look at it and make a decision fairly soon.”
“I am not running for mayor. It’s just something I have not thought about,” she said. “But I do think a Black candidate has just as good of a chance of winning as any other candidate if they are qualified.”
* Greg Hinz looks at CTA Chairman Terry Peterson and state Sen. James Meeks…
Mr. Peterson — who’s held a half-dozen city gigs and clearly knows the game — could be formidable. If, that is, he’s willing to put aside his comfy private sector gig and really go for the gold. I have my doubts.
Mr. Meeks has feinted before for higher office, but he’s putting on a good show this time. Best-known as a leading advocate for better funding of schools, he comes out of Jesse Jackson Jr.’s organization. And he has one other interesting credential: He’s built, from scratch, a huge church and congregation in his day job as a minister, something that ironically could help him with the business community.
Peterson was uncommittal yesterday when asked about a possible race.
A Chicago pawnbroker said he will spend between $5 million and $6 million to get out his message - that he’s a successful small businessman and not a politician - in an unlikely race for Illinois governor.
Cohen said he would spend $3 million in the primary, but ended up spending about $2 million (and another half mil or so through the end of June). Pretty much everybody ignored Cohen’s spending plan announcement before the primary and we saw how that ended. But even if he spends $3 to $4 million on the general, that’s a whole lot of cash and completely unprecedented for an independent candidate here. The media is gonna blow it again if reporters don’t start covering this man.
* Gov. Pat Quinn is trying to attack Cohen, but most reporters aren’t paying much attention. The other day, Quinn demanded that Cohen release his tax returns, and it was buried in an AP roundup…
Quinn called on the wealthy businessman to make his income taxes public, as other candidates have. He also suggested Cohen and his family have taken advantage of the poor.
“I don’t know why anybody would ever vote for him. He has run a pawnbroking business. His family’s been involved in currency exchanges,” Quinn said.
* The reason Quinn is pushing the tax returns angle is because he is in possession of an opposition research report that heavily stresses Cohen’s extensive use of cash and lack of personal checking accounts. You can read that Cohen OR report by clicking here. I gave Cohen’s media advisor a chance to respond to what was in the report, but he declined. The report was prepared soon after the primary. I obtained it through a second-hand source and then verified where it came from.
* In other third party news, Libertarian Party US Senate candidate Mike Labno recently went off on Republican Mark Kirk. Click here for the audio. Transcript…
“I want to talk about many of the issues, Mark Kirk and one of the things you asked me to talk about was where our differences are. Our differences, between Mark Kirk and I, are great. The guy is practically a Democrat. I’m not even sure how he got on the Republican ticket in the first place. But when it comes to economics he’s just another big spender, cap and trade is where his interest lies.”
Historically, Libertarian candidates have received an average of just over 1 percent of the vote in Illinois Senate races, most recently in 2004 and 2008.
The Giannoulias folks are hoping Labno pulls away votes in a close race. We’ll see. So far, polls are showing that Kirk is doing pretty well with conservatives.
During an appearance at a Springfield coffeehouse last month, Whitney had an audience of fewer than a dozen people.
* And Forrest Claypool’s independent campaign has been sued…
A former Cook County Board of Review employee filed a libel and defamation suit Tuesday in Cook County Circuit Court against assessor candidate Commissioner Forrest Claypool and his campaign.
Victor Santana filed the chancery suit against Claypool, Citizens for Claypool and campaign manager Tom Bowen charging that a post on the campaign’s joeberrios.com website was “factually inaccurate.”
The Claypool campaign has used the site to embarrass Board of Review Commissioner Joseph Berrios, the Democratic nominee for assessor, and to bolster Claypool’s independent candidacy. Republican Sharon Strobeck-Eckersall and Robert Grota of the Green Party are also seeking the office.
Santana took issue with a post implicating him in an investigation into charges that state Rep. Paul Froelich, an Arlington Heights Democrat, used his influence to get assessment appeals lowered before the Board of Review.
* In your opinion, who would be the single best and the single worst candidate for mayor of Chicago? Try to stick to those whose names have already been floated, please. Rod Blagojevich, Scott Lee Cohen, etc. aren’t exactly helpful here.
Unless Quinn can get his act together soon, he will definitely hamper Giannoulias, no matter what Alexi is telling the media. I find myself agreeing with Silver here.
* Nate apparently hasn’t gotten around to handicapping our congressional races yet, but here’s a link for future reference.
“I must admonish the media to end its coordinated commentary on who will be the next mayor of the city of Chicago,” Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) said in a statement, alluding to his African American constituents’ ability to influence the race. “Whoever that person will be will have to come through my community….before anyone is deemed an imaginary front-runner in this particular race, they should pause and take that into consideration.”
Make no mistake about it, race will play a huge role in this campaign. Period. There’s no getting around this, no matter how distasteful Rush’s tactics can be. The question becomes whether black politicos can rally around one person. I don’t see that yet, partly because there’s a growing old/young split in the African-American leadership. But there’s a lot of time left. Pretty much the same thing goes for Latinos.
“The mayoralty in Chicago is an unbelievealy attractive opportunity,” Axelord said in a West Wing interview. “And I’m sure if Rahm decides to do that, the President will support that decision.”
But staffers at the White House expect that Emanuel will run, one administration official said, recalling what the chief of staff said several weeks ago: “If and when Rich doesn’t run, I’ll do it.”
One analyst said he doesn’t think Chicago voters would blame Emanuel for failures in Obama’s political strategy, or for Democrats’ poor performance in the midterms.
“If there’s one place that wouldn’t matter, it’d be Chicago,” said Larry Sabato, professor of politics at the University of Virginia, adding that city voters would view his Washington relationships as assets. “’This guy has connections that could do us a lot of good.’ That’s how they think.”
We don’t know what the situation will look like on November 3rd, and if it’s really bad and Emanuel is still in the White House then the mayor’s spot will look like a consolation prize for a horrible loser. That could definitely hurt him. Plus, the Chicago media is not going to give this guy a free ride just because the DC media is all focused on him. It’s just about the toughest town in the news biz, and Rahm ain’t gonna coast through by any means. For example, here’s Lynn Sweet’s lede…
While White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel is lionized in Washington, he would not start a mayoral race in Chicago automatically first in line to replace Mayor Daley.
“I don’t think there is such a thing as frontrunner,” said JPMorgan Chase & Co. Midwest Chairman William Daley, the mayor’s brother, a former U.S. commerce secretary and an Emanuel friend.
Other political experts agree that the opening is likely to attract a large number of candidates and that Emanuel, who still owns a home in the city, wouldn’t have the field to himself.
“He’s an opportunist, but he’s got his work cut out for him,” said John McCarron, an urban affairs writer and adjunct professor at DePaul University in Chicago.
Emanuel has a million dollars in his campaign fund and formidable fund-raising ability, giving him a running start against rivals — if he jumps in the contest. Emanuel, a former House member from a district anchored on the North Side, is without a solid political base in Chicago. The unions and other progressives are mad at him over national issues that would seep into a mayoral contest.
Emanuel would have to do a lot of work to get Democratic committeemen to unite around his candidacy — but he knows a thing or two about coalition building.
* The Tribune has a comprehensive list of most of the candidates who are being talked about. More from CBS2…
Right now, there are more names being floated than ABC’s in a vat of alphabet soup. We’re hearing boomlets for City Council powerhouse Ed Burke, Chief Judge Tim Evans and even County Assessor Jim Houlihan… If elected, Huberman would be Chicago’s first openly gay mayor. But back in April, Ald. Tom Tunney (44th) said he would be interested in holding that distinction. He said he would be interested in “exploring the possibility” of running for mayor if Daley retired.
Gery Chico, 54, who lost a race for Senate to Barack Obama, was appointed by Daley recently to head up the City Colleges of Chicago. Chico says he’s seriously considering a run, even though he just recently gave away the last of his campaign funds to charity.
“My phone’s been ringing all day with people urging me to run — it’s something I’m very seriously considering,” Chico said.
Freshman Rep. Mike Quigley isn’t ruling out a run. About the only one who flat-out said no was former Chicago Schools CEO Paul Vallas, who has another year left on his contract running the New Orleans schools.
If Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart becomes a candidate as expected, he quickly becomes the favorite and shuts the door on a number of hopefuls. He’s riding a wave of good press, appeals to both Machine types and Independents and hasn’t burned his bridges in the African-American community.
But he won’t scare everyone off.
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel won’t be backed down by a Dart candidacy — and vice versa. Just the same, Emanuel doesn’t seem well-positioned at this moment to make a run, and while he’d be the best-funded candidate, it’s not entirely clear where he finds his niche.
Attorney General Lisa Madigan could throw everything up for grabs if she were interested, though she has never indicated she would be.
If African-American voters were to unite around a candidate as they did with Washington, they could put that individual in the runoff. But if they could agree on a candidate, Daley probably wouldn’t have been mayor for 21 years.
With Daley’s announcement, Burke will gain power, as the aldermen seek to reassert themselves after spending decades stamping Daley’s writs with their rubber foreheads.
Uncertainty and anarchy scares the business community more than just about anything else. It’s bad enough that the state can’t get its act together. If the city’s politics fall apart, then biz leaders are gonna freak.
* Roundup…
* Daley might retire with extra $1.5M: As of June 30, the mayor had $1,479,823 left in his campaign fund. And under state law, he can claim that as income as long as he pays taxes on it.
* Democratic US Senate nominee Alexi Giannoulias is up with a new statewide ad buy featuring President Obama. Rate it…
ADDING: The video should be working now.
*** UPDATE *** Response from National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) Press Secretary Amber Marchand…
Is this the ‘change’ that President Obama believes in? After telling Americans that our country doesn’t need another banker in Washington, he wants Illinois voters to elect a failed mob banker who loaned millions of dollars to known criminals? How are Illinois voters supposed to ‘trust’ Giannoulias with their pocketbooks after he squandered millions of taxpayer dollars set aside for the state’s college fund? How does the President propose that Illinois voters ‘count on’ Giannoulias after he drove his own family’s business into the ground, forcing the government to pay for his risky loans and reckless behavior? Shooting hoops and calling his buddy from Chicago a ‘friend’ is one thing, but President Obama should know that Illinois voters deserve more than a reckless mob banker with a thin resume of experience in the U.S. Senate.”
* 7:36 pm - A group of way overboard NIMBYs lost a big one, thankfully…
Officials from Navistar International Corp. are expected to announce the engine manufacturing company’s plan to move its headquarters to Lisle at a Wednesday morning press conference, DuPage County Board president Bob Schillerstrom said Tuesday. […]
Navistar President Dan Ustian, Gov. Pat Quinn and Attorney General Lisa Madigan, as well as other state and local leaders, are expected to be at the 10 a.m. press conference at the Alcatel-Lucent site, 2701 Lucent Lane, in Lisle.
Navistar officials previously said they were exploring locations in Alabama, Texas and South Carolina because of local opposition to the proposed headquarters site in Lisle. The company is currently located in Warrenville.
In one November hearing before the village’s planning and zoning commission, about 100 people spoke out against Navistar’s proposal, including nearby residents and representatives of a school for autistic children that had just opened next door to the building. They were concerned in part about air pollution, noise, traffic and safety issues.
