* From Rahm Emanuel campaign manager Mike Ruemmler…
“Today, an objection was filed to the petitions of Mr. Willie Wilson and Mr. Frederick Collins, both candidates for Mayor, by Julian Nicks and Pam McKinney, both of Chicago. Mayor Emanuel’s re-election campaign supports these challenges and believes that they will be successful.
“A full and thorough review of all of Mr. Wilson’s 43,000 signatures has revealed an astonishing pattern of deception. After careful review, the campaign found that more than 35,000 signatures included fake and duplicate signatures, false addresses of petitioners, and a particularly sloppy overall petition submission, rife with name and address strikeouts.
“Of particular concern is the fact that there were similar patterns in the petitions of Gabe Beukinga, a candidate for 27th Ward Alderman, whose petitions are also being challenged on similar grounds. The common denominator between Mr. Beukinga and Mr. Wilson is Ricky Hendon. Not only is Ricky Hendon involved with the petition gathering effort for both candidates, but he is Mr. Wilson’s political director.”
“Mr. Collins’ signatures fly in the face of any acceptable standard. His pages feature the same handwriting, page after page, for pages on end.”
Attachments include:
* So, who is Willie Wilson and why is Mayor Emanuel concerned? Charles Thomas profiled the businessman not long ago…
Wilson, who owns a $60 million a year medical supply business, says his voting address is a penthouse apartment overlooking Lake Michigan. It’s a long way from rural Louisiana, where he says he picked cotton and dropped out after seventh grade. […]
“We give away personally about $800,000 to $1 million a year to churches every year,” Wilson said.
And the leaders of those churches say they’ll help the candidate. […]
Wilson, who supported Republican Bruce Rauner in the governor’s race, says Rahm Emanuel failed the city’s children when Emanuel closed schools.
Wilson’s net worth is estimated by some to be as high as $65 million.
* From an October Chicago Magazine story…
Willie Wilson, owner of a medical supply company and a gospel music production company —his weekly Sunday morning gospel show, Singsation! nationally syndicated, airs on WGN-TV—spends many Sunday mornings with Rauner, accompanying him as he makes the rounds of black churches “up and down the state.” The two drive in one car, Wilson says, and their drivers in another. Wilson says he’s been “pretty much a Democrat all my life”; he donated heavily to Quinn’s 2010 race. Quinn is a “personal friend” who “wasn’t happy” when Wilson, a Louisianan sharecropper’s son, the third of 11 children, told him he had switched sides.
The Rauner campaign is understandably steering clear of Wilson’s candidacy these days.
* The Wilson campaign’s response to the petition challenge…
Wilson’s spokesman denied those accusations and said it’s all political chicanery.
“We know that our signatures are good,” said Gregory Livingston. “We’re not putting people out to do those kind of deceptive things.” […]
Livingston chalked up the accusations to “old school Chicago politics” and said Emanuel’s campaign is trying to scare black voters.
“They decided to go with the biggest kind of scare they could,” Livingston said. “It’s going to backfire on them.”
If they don’t succeed in knocking Wilson off, the challenge could very well backfire. I’m assuming the mayor’s campaign knows what it’s doing here and understands the risks involved. We’ll see.
*** UPDATE *** Rickey Hendon just called to say he has starting going through Emanuel’s objections. On the first page alone, Hendon claimed, he found about half of the objections to be spurious.
- William j Kelly - Thursday, Dec 4, 14 @ 10:23 am:
Great work Rich! Please keep us posted! Thank you!
- Chicago Cynic - Thursday, Dec 4, 14 @ 10:24 am:
Wow - those are some idiotically bad submissions.
- Chicago Cynic - Thursday, Dec 4, 14 @ 10:26 am:
Why’d you drop out William Kelly? And why after putting $100,000 in the race? Did you know by doing so you would be blowing the caps and allowing Rahm to collect unlimited cash?
- Pot calling kettle - Thursday, Dec 4, 14 @ 10:28 am:
The Collins folks were clearly not trained properly. They were supposed to pass the sheets around the table, not have each person fill out a whole sheet. Amateurs!
- AlabamaShake - Thursday, Dec 4, 14 @ 10:34 am:
**The Rauner campaign …**
Freudian slip there?
- admin - Thursday, Dec 4, 14 @ 10:34 am:
@Chicago Cynic - You don’t seem to understand how this works. Kelly didn’t just blow the caps for Rahm but he blew them for ALL THE CANDIDATES. In fact, Commissioner Garcia has now received hundreds of thousands in donations that he would not have received - wait for it - but for William Kelly. Don’t believe me - believe Crain’s. http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20141202/BLOGS02/141209930/now-its-a-race-garcia-gets-250000-from-union-for-mayoral-run
- Chicago Cynic - Thursday, Dec 4, 14 @ 10:35 am:
Yes admin, that’s a good point. But the biggest beneficiary of this is clearly going to be Rahm.
- Wordslinger - Thursday, Dec 4, 14 @ 10:37 am:
Wilson has a heckuva story to tell. Too bad Rauner wont support a guy who publicly stuck his neck out for him in the black community. One-way street there.
Rickey’s been around the block a few times. Would he be that sloppy to get bumped?
I notice Emanuel isn’t looking to knock Shaw off the ballot. Gee, I wonder why?
- AlabamaShake - Thursday, Dec 4, 14 @ 10:39 am:
**The Rauner campaign …** … Freudian slip there?
And it would help if I could read. Ignore that comment.
- walker - Thursday, Dec 4, 14 @ 10:39 am:
You might not like the petition requirements, but you cannot beat them.
Get and train the right gatherers, and don’t skip the step of a complete and thorough review of your own petitions before submission. It’s worth taking as much as a week at the end of the process reviewing and repairing rather than gathering more names.
- Snucka - Thursday, Dec 4, 14 @ 11:09 am:
Emanuel is trying to avoid a runoff, so it makes sense to eliminate as many primary contenders as he can. These two seem to be the most vulnerable.
- Precinct Captain - Thursday, Dec 4, 14 @ 12:00 pm:
Fifteen people who signed over 500 times? What a mess.
- William j Kelly - Thursday, Dec 4, 14 @ 12:01 pm:
I have always been a big fan of Gilbert Gottfried, imagine my joy when he made a video about me! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1ejFCRnmsc
- admin - Thursday, Dec 4, 14 @ 12:05 pm:
@chicago cynic - are you saying that Rahm’s challengers would have caught up to his $10 mil fund that he had before the caps were off. Rauner is unpopular it won’t take much to upset the apple cart.
- Gooner - Thursday, Dec 4, 14 @ 12:32 pm:
So “William J. Kelly” posts, followed by an attack dog post by “admin.” Hey, that’s unusual.
In any case, Wilson’s people are right about “old school Chicago politics.” Unfortunately for Wilson, paying people who gather fake signatures is pretty old school.
One last note — is Gabe B even going to bother defending his petitions? After his drunken rants to developers, he’s toast.
- ZC - Thursday, Dec 4, 14 @ 12:46 pm:
I’ll agree with the it-helps-Rahm’s-challengers argument.
Money probably has an asymptotic effect on campaigns - without any, you’re dead (which is presumably why Rahm is less worried about less-well-funded challengers than Wilson). But the advantage probably levels out over time - the 15th direct mail or televison ad probably doesn’t improve your chances much more, say, than the 14th.
And it’s hard to get a bunch of small donors to all coordinate on a longshot candidacy (which I’d still call Commissioner Garcia’s) and take the initial risk of funding him, counting on everyone else to chip in small amounts too. Once he’s got a critical mass of cash, it gets easier to persuade more donors to take a chance on his viability.
So yeah, Rahm is still the financial favorite, but the no-caps-environment probably on net works to favor his opponents. It’s one of the most powerful arguments -against- campaign finance reform / contribution limits. If only they could do something about the dark money / lack of transparency, they might convince me a deregulated environment is actually better for competitive elections.
- William j Kelly - Thursday, Dec 4, 14 @ 12:46 pm:
Google muffin pops!
- William j Kelly - Thursday, Dec 4, 14 @ 12:49 pm:
What the heck? This spell check has a mind of its own! Lol!
- Soccermom - Thursday, Dec 4, 14 @ 12:50 pm:
I love that Rahm’s campaign is in full-throated support of these challenges. I hate it when campaigns pretend that they’re not trying to knock challengers off the ballots.
Nice work, Ruemmler.
- William j Kelly - Thursday, Dec 4, 14 @ 12:57 pm:
Let me try this again, what I meant to say was, I had no idea Gilbert Gottfried was so interested in Chicago politics!
- admin - Thursday, Dec 4, 14 @ 1:10 pm:
@gomer/goober/Goner/Gooner I calls it like I sees it. Unlike Kelly, at least I can spell.
- Gooner - Thursday, Dec 4, 14 @ 1:14 pm:
Yes admin, always mere minutes after Kelly sees it exactly the same way.
- OneMan - Thursday, Dec 4, 14 @ 1:23 pm:
I thought admin was a big Rauner guy? If so that would make him in some ways the Anti-Kelly
- William j Kelly - Thursday, Dec 4, 14 @ 1:27 pm:
I would like to apologize to anyone who wasted time googling muffin pops, once again that was a spelling error for which I apologize.
- Gooner - Thursday, Dec 4, 14 @ 1:31 pm:
So, in summary, the update reports “Hendon does don’t worry. We didn’t cheat on all of them.”
That has to be one of the funniest CapFax updates ever.
- William j Kelly - Thursday, Dec 4, 14 @ 1:34 pm:
Ok, now this might be a little strange but I just googled muffin pops and they look delicious! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1ejFCRnmsc
- Anonymoiis - Thursday, Dec 4, 14 @ 2:06 pm:
I suspect there’s at least a small part of everyone who want Wilson to stay on the ballot just for the potential for Rickey Hendon soundbites
- Knome Sane (now known as "The Real Sock Puppet") - Thursday, Dec 4, 14 @ 2:13 pm:
@William j Kelly =now this might be a little strange=
Strange? Coming from you? Nah.
- Wordslinger - Friday, Dec 5, 14 @ 8:05 am:
Rauner should walk it like he talks it and back Wilson, if he’s really an honest “shake ‘em up” kind of guy.
Wilson was a Quinn backer who broke with him and gave Rauner cred in black churches all over the state. That took some guts.
Emanuel backed Quinn, right? It must be true, because he said so.
There was a lot of talk from Rauner during the campaign about politicians like Quinn taking the black community for granted and only showing up at election time.
Well, there’s all sorts of talk now about Emanuel taking the black community for granted. Here’s a chance for Rauner to fight against the “Chicago Machine” he likes to talk about.
Wilson doesn’t need a Thanksgiving turkey. But he could use some help from the latest “reform” governor, a dude Wilson stuck out his neck for.