* It hasn’t reached Dick Tuck levels yet, but Rahm Emanuel’s campaign has been pulling some political pranks on Gery Chico lately. All of the pranks are related to Chico’s claims that Emanuel wants to raise taxes by expanding the sales tax to services, along with a proposed quarter-point cut in the overall sales tax rate. The other day, Chico held an event a a barber shop, claiming that Emanuel’s new service tax would be imposed on those who cut hair (never gonna happen). Emanuel’s campaign was also there…
Outside Ron’s Barber Shop on South Harper, someone toyed with Chico’s campaign by sending a stretch limousine with posters on it that read, “Gery’s tax-free ride.”
The limo driver would not say who sent him. Asked if Emanuel’s campaign sent the limo, Emanuel spokesman Ben Labolt said, “Can you quote me winking?”
* And when Chico spoke out again about the sales tax plan, the Emanuel folks were present and accounted for…
As Chico talked, speakers from a rented truck blared a Web video produced by the Emanuel campaign, accusing Chico of distorting Emanuel’s plan to cut the city’s sales tax in exchange for broadening the tax to include some services.
The video rolled several news clips under a 1965 hit by the Lovin’ Spoonful, “Did You Ever Have to Make up Your Mind?,” to illustrate Emanuel’s contention that Chico supported a similar idea before turning against it.
Chico called that “a bunch of bunk,” explaining he’d previously suggested adding “e-tailing” or Internet purchases to the sales tax rate, not the “entire new swath of taxes” that Emanuel backs.
* The dispute was rather more intense among the campaign’s two African-American female candidates, however…
“Carol Moseley Braun hasn’t been around for 20 years,” said [Patricia Van Pelt-Watkins], a community activist, prompting a verbal response from the crowd in the church. “We haven’t seen her.”
Moseley Braun, allowed to answer later, listed her public service and told Watkins, “You were strung out on crack. I was starting a business on the South Side. I was hiring people.”
Watkins has said that she used drugs from ages 19 to 21 — more than 30 years ago — but said Sunday she has never used crack.
“She has a way of embellishing her own history and other people’s experiences,” Watkins said.
Braun traveled to Washington and New Orleans last week to raise money so she can air television spots she has already shot but can’t afford to air. Her campaign posted a nearly three-minute video called “On the Issues, In Every Neighborhood” on YouTube.
