In a radio ad airing on Chicago hip-hop station WGCI, Annette Nance-Holt, mother of slain Chicago Public Schools student Blair Holt, endorses Emanuel.
In May of 2007, a 16-year-old gang member opened fire on a CTA bus. Blair, also 16, dove in front of a classmate to shield her from the gunfire and was killed.
Annette Nance-Holt, a Chicago Fire Department captain, and the boy’s father Ronald Holt, a Chicago police officer, have been committed to stopping gun violence in Chicago’s communities since their son was slain.
“Soon, Chicago will choose a new mayor,” Nance-Holt says in the ad. “I want someone with a strong record of fighting crime and gun violence. As President Clinton’s point man on crime, Rahm Emanuel put 100,000 more police officers on the streets, including hundreds more here in Chicago.”
The ad also uses a quote from Barack Obama. Rate it…
* Emanuel is sticking closely to the script, letting his paid media do the talking and staying away from events that could get him off-message. He’s becoming the Bill Brady of Chicago…
Something’s missing from Chicago’s mayoral candidate forums: Rahm Emanuel.
On at least three nights next week — Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday — just about all of the major candidates for mayor, except the former White House chief of staff, have agreed to sit side-by-side at community forums and take questions from voters or panelists.
But Emanuel is taking a pass, as he has done with other forums this week and last.
“I don’t think he’ll do any of them,” Emanuel spokesman Ben Labolt said of next week’s forums. “He’s been speaking to voters directly where they live and work every day of the week.”
* But reporters did manage to get some news out of him yesterday when Emanuel held a press conference about boosting teacher training…
Former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel would not commit to sending his children to public schools if elected Chicago mayor. Fellow candidate James Meeks wasn’t faulting him for that, but opponent Gery Chico talked about “leading by example.”
Emanuel said Tuesday what school his children attend was a decision his family would make. His comments came after he proposed increasing teacher training academies. He said he wasn’t saying he wouldn’t send his three children to Chicago Public Schools.
State Sen. James T. Meeks, who has made equitable school financing a hallmark of his political career, did not send his children to public schools. He sent his children, who are now adults, to parochial high schools.
“I don’t want a school system the mayor of Chicago is ashamed to send his own kids to,” Meeks said, while adding that he wouldn’t fault Emanuel for not doing so. “We should have quality schools everyone wants to send their kids to.”
Meeks has also been a major advocate of school vouchers, which would allow parents to send their children to private schools.
Mayoral contender Gery Chico attended Chicago public schools, and his children graduated from Northside College Prep and Von Steuben high schools. Northside was built during Chico’s tenure as school board president, and some critics accused him of pushing for the high-performing school near his home for personal reasons.
* Every time John Kass writes about Rahm Emanuel’s residency he claims he thinks Emanuel should be allowed on the ballot. Then he always adds a falsehood about the law or about history in an attempt to prove that Emanuel probably isn’t a Chicago resident or can’t legally prove he is entitled to ballot access. Kass claimed Emanuel couldn’t have possibly voted absentee because he’d been purged from the voter rolls - except that Emanuel wasn’t purged and all he had to do was sign an affidavit that came with his absentee ballot to legally vote. He claimed that Paul Vallas was kept from running for governor in 2006 because he was ruled a non-resident - without informing his readers that Vallas registered to vote in Philadelphia and had sold his Chicago home.
Right now, the story involves the residency drama. All that jabbering and shrieking this week at the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners plays into Rahm’s hands. There’s more to come Monday.
This week, some in the hearing room wore “Indict Rahm” buttons and yelled and yelled and yelled.
“The days of running this board as a racketeering-influenced conspiracy organization are OVER!!!!” shouted one man. […]
And so it went, the caterwauling and finger-pointing and everybody demanding to be able to question witnesses. It exasperated Burt Odelson, the election lawyer who put together what is considered to be the most credible challenge to Emanuel’s residency. […]
Well, Burt, you might want to move on, but Queen Sister and her friends want their media face time. And the Daley-friendly (and therefore Rahm-friendly) city elections board has folded them all together.
Yeah. That Daley-friendly and Rahm-friendly city elections board is all to blame for consolidating those cases. There absolutely must be something going on. But this is the response I received today from the city’s board of elections…
The board [consolidated the complaints] to prevent witnesses from being called (and issuing subpoenas to those witnesses) for 30 separate appearances to testify on the same issues. Such consolidation is common.
We also consolidate record exams (aka “binder checks”) when the same candidate is facing multiple and related objections over signatures on his or her petition.
In the Emanuel cases, all of the objections center on residency. Many of the objections are quite literally fill-in-the-blank photocopies of each other.
Kass also forgot to mention the background of the hearing officer appointed by the board. From the Illinois Review…
A Cook County Republican, former president of United Republican Fund, former candidate for Cook County Board, and former Reagan Administration appointee, attorney Joseph Morris will act as presiding officer over challenges to Rahm Emanuel’s bid for Chicago mayor Monday at 11:00 am.
So, yet another conspiracy theory is undone by simple facts.
* Is it me, or did the State Journal-Register just publish an anti-Semitic letter to the editor which was ostensibly about how people don’t care when they offend Christians…
In the halls of schools and government institutions, no one will object to the profane use of Christ’s name (think Rahm Israel Emanuel).
Think: Israel.
Sheesh.
* Roundup…
* Mayor hopeful Chico gets backing of Ald. George Cardenas
