* 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.
