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The [Monday] Papers
"Chicago mayoral candidates Lori Lightfoot and Toni Preckwinkle capped a final weekend of campaigning by fanning out across the city to reach voters everywhere from behind a bar in South Chicago and on the streets of Little Village to the tables of a Lakeview restaurant and the aisles of a Pullman Walmart," the Tribune reports.
Let's dig in.
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"Lightfoot won the February first-round election, thanks to a base of voters along the predominantly white, liberal lakefront, but has since expanded her coalition to include key endorsements from more conservative neighborhoods along the Northwest and Southwest sides and among some top Latino leaders, including U.S. Rep. Jesus 'Chuy' Garcia. She's also been backed by businessman Willie Wilson, who won the highest number of predominantly black wards in the first round."
In other words, Lightfoot has grown her vote since the first round and created a broad coalition stretching across the city's factions.
"Preckwinkle, chair of the Cook County Democratic Party, finished second in February thanks to a base centered on Hyde Park on the South Side, winning five of the city's majority black wards and placing second in the other 13. She also won a mostly Latino ward on the Northwest Side, and has picked up backing from some Latino aldermen but has shown few signs of growing her support more broadly on the North Side.
"As such, Preckwinkle spent almost her entire weekend encouraging voters to head to the polls on the predominantly black South and West sides. She also made visits to Little Village and Humboldt Park, heavily Latino neighborhoods. Her schedule showed no visits to the city's predominantly white wards."
In other words, Preckwinkle, who has never had a deep base of black support, has tried to create just such a base since the first round to eke out a win almost entirely on black turnout.
Wilson, though, who led all candidates in black votes, is with Lightfoot. And no group remains more aggrieved about Preckwinkle's ill-fated soda tax than the very voters she is trying to turn out. No wonder, on the eve of Election Day, surrogate and Secretary of State Jesse White is found in the Trib report pleading to a church congregation in South Austin that "She's about more than just the sugar tax. That's been done for about two years, and it will not come back. So now, let's move forward."
It's going to be a tough go for Preckwinkle.
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This, too, is revealing:
With the perception that Lightfoot holds a commanding lead in the race, the former federal prosecutor and her surrogates urged her supporters not to get complacent."I don't care what the polls say, we cannot leave a stone unturned," U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly said in South Shore, with her endorsed candidate Lightfoot by her side. "We have to do everything we can do. We have to run like we are behind. Don't take anything for granted."
Meanwhile, Preckwinkle's top surrogates kept encouraging voters to ignore talk of endorsements and polls, of which there have been few, and focus on turning out in big numbers for the Cook County Board president.
"It's not the numbers that you see in those polls, it's the heart of the people that we have to know and be concerned and working with," West Side Ald. Jason Ervin, 28th, said at a get-out-the-vote event for Preckwinkle in Fifth City. "Don't let the polls drive you to a decision that's not where you want to be. We have to vote with our hearts, vote with what we know is going to be right and is going to be best for our community."
When one camp is warning about complacency due to poll numbers and the other side is urging voters to ignore the poll numbers, that means both sides agree on the poll numbers.
In that case, you'd rather be the campaign warning against complacency, because you've got a big lead. This is Lightfoot's to lose.
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"Preckwinkle also spent a chunk of the day visiting various South Side grocery stores, though her campaign didn't publicize them. It did, however, tweet photos of her visiting shoppers at Jewel stores in Brainerd and Grand Crossing, a Food-4-Less in Chatham and the sprawling Walmart in Pullman."
A campaign that doesn't want publicity on the weekend before Election Day is a campaign that is either incompetent, is afraid that their campaign stops will draw embarrassingly little enthusiasm, or doesn't want to face the questions that come with media attention. I'd say the Preckwinkle campaign checks all three boxes. It's also a campaign that avoided the media at the end of the first round when it thought it was ahead, and now seems to be avoiding the media at the end of the second round because it thinks it is behind.
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"White later urged congregants at the Greater Harvest Baptist Church in Washington Park to avoid an election like the one that elevated former Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner and President Donald Trump to office.
"We don't want to make another mistake," White said.
That line may have worked if Preckwinkle's opponent was Willie Wilson, a politically inexperienced and badly misinformed bumbler who voted for Rauner and Trump and whose time as mayor would've been undoubtedly chaotic, but it does not work with Lori Lightfoot, both because of her liberal bona fides (including board stints with the ACLU, NARAL, the Center for Wrongful Convictions, and the Better Government Association, as well as, just for starters, her work on the police reform task force) and because of her demonstrated competence.
It's sheer demagoguery - and by a Machine hack whose popularity is due to a tumbling team.
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Has Bobby "Blood On Their Hands" Rush been sidelined?
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"Later in the day, White and Preckwinkle joined U.S. Rep. Danny Davis, Ald. Walter Burnett, Ald. Jason Ervin, city treasurer candidate and state Rep. Melissa Conyears-Ervin and Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson for what the County Board president's campaign advertised as the weekend's closing get-out-the-vote rally, but a crowd of just 60 people was scattered throughout the sanctuary."
Oy. Now I almost feel bad for piling on. But not really, given that cast of creatures.
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"God is in control of what's going to happen here. You're going to be surprised," said Burnett, 27th.
Question for Burnett: Did God abandon us the last eight years - nay, the last 30 years? Or was that all part of The Plan?
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Besides, doesn't God have a football game somewhere to decide?
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God is not off-limits in my book. He shouldn't be to any journalist.
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If God says He loves you, check His very existence out.
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"On Saturday morning, both candidates visited the Rev. Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH Coalition to give brief speeches to a crowd of a few hundred people. Preckwinkle arrived out of breath after rushing over from a nearby housing forum but managed to repeat her theme of "experience matters" during a brief speech.
"You know we live in a beautiful city with some great neighborhoods, but tremendous challenges," Preckwinkle said. "And I know it's going to be a battle to address those challenges, and I want you to know that I'm up for the fight."
I wasn't up for the fight when Daley was mayor, and I wasn't up for the fight any time Rahm ran, including when I thought he'd run this time and I'd already announced that I would retire after my next term as county board president, but I'm up for the fight now!
Low Turnout Narrative
"Trends indicate voter turnout for Tuesday's runoff election is on pace to mirror the nearly record-low turnout of 35 percent in the February first round that whittled 14 mayoral candidates to two: Lori Lightfoot and Toni Preckwinkle," the Sun-Times reports.
vs.
Yesterday the Chicago Board of Elections added a number of late arriving mail ballots to their totals & now turnout is up to 35.2% making it the 2nd highest Chicago municipal general election turnout this century, trailing only 2011https://t.co/RvaCgAEvOyhttps://t.co/5nJlvKsMN4
— IL Election Data (@ILElectionData) March 2, 2019
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Trib Edit Board Botches Facts
Please read and share this Weekend Desk Report.
Even editorial boards should be bound by the facts. They should be embarrassed over there.
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New on the Beachwood . . .
SportsMonday: Panic Room
"People, try a little harder," our very own Jim "Coach" Coffman writes. "You know that 'prominent person pledges not to be an idiot' is not news and yet you still trumpet 'not panicking' as news. The Cubs lost a couple games in a row over the weekend and the p-word came out. For gosh sakes enough already."
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The White Sox Report: Opening Salvo
"It will be in the 40s Thursday afternoon with a cloud cover blocking out the sun," our very own Roger Wallenstein writes. "Typical for an Opening Day in Chicago. The buses will line up early in the parking lots, the grills will fill the air with some of the best scents imaginable, the pops of beer cans will be heard, the teams will be introduced to take their places along the foul lines, and baseball will return to the South Side."
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Calculating The Future Of Sports Through Analytics
"The Cubs' Jason McLeod keynotes an event exploring the escalating value of data and technology to teams, athletes and fans."
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Night Coming Tenderly, Black
"[Chicago's Dawoud Bey] shifts his focus from the portrait and the human subject to a landscape that holds the memory of fugitive pathways.
"The series of 25 large-scale photographs depicts a reimagining of homes and grassy or wooded grounds along the Underground Railroad - the invisible network of routes and safe houses through which perhaps 100,000 or more enslaved African Americans found passage to freedom."
Through April 14, so time is running out.
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Netflix Casting In Chicago For Show That Sounds Awful
Beachwood Field Trip?
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ChicagoReddit
Chicago v.s. Baltimore from r/chicago
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ChicagoGram
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ChicagoTube
Cubs Relief Pitcher Randy Rosario Already Made The Season's Coolest Play.
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TweetWood
A sampling.
— Beachwood Reporter (@BeachwoodReport) April 1, 2019
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Cannibal Sandwiches: A Polarizing And Misunderstood Wisconsin Tradition https://t.co/mV9FLzN4jQ
— Beachwood Reporter (@BeachwoodReport) April 1, 2019
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Twitter fyi:@toniforchicago has 3,326 followers.@LightfootForChi has 10.6K followers.
— Beachwood Reporter (@BeachwoodReport) March 31, 2019
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Trump is the world's worst cheat at golf, players and celebs say https://t.co/i4vsQq9MYf via @nypost
— Beachwood Reporter (@BeachwoodReport) March 31, 2019
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The Beachwood McRibTipLine: Less talkin', more walkin'.
Posted on April 1, 2019
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