Karen Lewis vs. Rahm Emanuel - February 2014 [View all]

[JackRiddler]

Gary Younge in The Guardian:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/10/cities-progressive-urban-america-chicago-obama

SNIP SOME STUFF ABOUT EMANUEL'S FINE CHARACTER

Emanuel, who was Barack Obama’s chief of staff, is now mayor of Chicago. Lewis is the head of the Chicago Teachers Union who got the better of him after leading the teachers in a strike two years ago. The two genuinely despise each other. When Lewis took on Emanuel over lengthening the school day, he told her: “Fuck you, Lewis!”; during the strike Lewis branded him a “liar and a bully”.

Now Lewis is seriously considering running against Emanuel for the mayoralty next year. People are wearing buttons urging her candidacy and setting up Facebook pages to support her. When she showed up at a civil rights conference two months ago the crowd cheered “Run, Karen, run!”

She could win. A Chicago Sun Times poll last month gave Lewis a nine-point lead with 18% undecided. Other polls have Emanuel in front by a similar margin. But between them a general picture emerges. The situation is volatile; Emanuel is vulnerable and Lewis is viable.

SNIP SOME STUFF ABOUT RECENT BIG CITY ELECTIONS

The organisational and electoral bases of these campaigns are virtually the same as those that propelled Obama to victory – trade unions, minorities, young people (particularly young women) and liberals. And they are promising what Obama has been unwilling or unable to deliver. They are trying to raise the minimum wage, introduce green technology, create affordable housing, levy money from the wealthy to fund universal childcare and rein in their police departments from racist excess. These are bold plans and, for the most part, they are acting on them. Bill de Blasio, the mayor of New York, has described the city as a “laboratory” for New Deal-style reforms. In reality these initiatives are more like local triage against the wounds of over a generation of stagnant wages, neoliberal reform and the class and racial polarisation that comes with them – all of which were further aggravated by the most recent economic crisis. It looks like the New Deal only because so many Americans have been getting such a bad deal for so long. Local, populist and redistributive, they owe more to the Occupy movement of 2011 of which they are the most logical, likely corollary. Their agendas, of course, are far less ambitious. But they share a trajectory.

SNIP - GO READ IT ALL

I had no idea that Lewis is "a former standup comedian... recently converted to Judaism. She studied music in college, has a master’s degree in film, and taught chemistry in high school."

Article describes Emanuel rejecting donor offers of less than $5000 because these are embarrassing!

The key thing, if Lewis tries it, will be to jiu-jitsu the money. The more Rahm spends, the more it can be leveraged against him. Bloomberg's one-year barrage of spending to harrass everyone in New York on a daily basis leading up to the 2009 election caused more people than ever to hate him, effectively helping a non-entity opponent with no money to get 46% on election night. Lewis is already the second best-recognized name in Chicago and effectively built a ground campaign during the successful teachers' strike.