* Laura Washington moderated a candidates forum last night. She asked them whether they would support Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s reelection today…

Chris Kennedy: I think he’s destroying our communities, he’s destroying the economic future of our state. Everything is driven by Chicago, and you can’t have an educational system where something like 75 percent of the kids who graduate CPS are so undereducated that they need remedial education. And then he allows an institution like this that provides that remedial education to practically be destroyed. He doesn’t believe what I believe in.

Laura Washington: Mr. Pritzker?

JB Pritzker: So many challenges that Rahm Emanuel has brought to the City of Chicago, it’s important for us to recognize that the chronic underfunding of schools in neighborhoods that most need that funding is something that we need to stand up against. The chronic challenge of violence in our communities, something that I believe Rahm Emanuel has not done a good job of. We need to make sure that we’re standing up against those basic principles. Now, what Bob Daiber said is right, which is let’s see who the candidates are in 2019. Who’s going to emerge here? Because we need to make sure that we’ve got someone that will stand up for a better education system, who’s going to stand up for our communities of color all across the City of Chicago. I always believe you always have to ask the question who are the candidates and then answer it.

LW: But you’re unhappy with his leadership?

JB: I am.

OK, Pritzker did criticize Emanuel, but that “let’s see who the candidates are” kinda reminds me of when he was asked if he planned to vote for President Barack Obama in 2012: “We’ll have to wait and see. I don’t know who the nominee’s gonna be on the Republican side.”

* Video…

* Kennedy, meanwhile, threw out an idea during the forum…

Chris Kennedy: The leadership of this state needs to look like the state itself. There needs to be a Rooney Rule. For every executive, every appointment, everybody that gets hired by the State of Illinois, the last pool of candidates there needs to be a woman. That’s how it has to change. I’ve seen what government can do. I remember my older sisters not being able to play sports, and my younger sister required to play sports on the very fields that my older sister was not allowed to play on because she was a woman. And then Title IX is passed and we see the incredible advancement. My own kids, four of them, they played on a collective 25 sports teams in college – I mean in High School. None of that would have been possible, those girls would not have played had their middle school and grade schools not been required to teach them sports. The government can do great things, but the government that we have today looks the other way. Once again bills come close to being passed and they fail, the Democratic Party doesn’t get the job done. And they say to us, ‘we’ll just elect a few more Democrats, we’ll get it done in the next election.’ Quit falling for that trap.

Laura Washington: Mr. Kennedy could I just quickly follow up on that. Can you explain how you would implement the Rooney Rule?

CK: - So the Rooney Rule…

LW: - As governor. And what you would actually do…

CK: How that works? The Rooney Rule was a – is a rule that’s been in place in the National Football League and it’s named after the owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers who’s since passed away. And they recognized that there was a lack of African-American leadership within the team organizations, outside of the players themselves. And they wrestled with that and they really didn’t do enough to change the culture. And he came up with this notion that in the final candidate pool of 3, for any job in management, in any team anywhere in the NFL – not the corporate part of the NFL, but in every team, at the Bears, at the Steelers, at the Giants, anywhere, that there had to be an African-American candidate in that pool. And that forced the teams, the recruiting professions, others to bring in and start sourcing talented African-Americans and it changed the face of the NFL as far as management goes. That notion can be applied to any targeted audience.

LW: So how would you do it? Are you suggesting that you would make sure that every candidate in your administration for every position?

CK: Yeah, every candidate in the administration… Every position would be required that there would be at least one woman in the final candidate pool.

Video is here.