RAHM EMANUEL TOPS CHUY GARCIA FOR CHICAGO MAYOR

[frazzled]

58. You do understand what "to speak of" means, don't you?

Because your post suggests you don't. My response was to counter the ludicrous suggestion that "Republicans" voters tilted the mayoral election. And yes, I read that Tribune article well before I read your post.

I live in Chicago, though not on the Northwest side. (The only time I've been there is to a paint store once, and there's a great little Polish restaurant we go to once or twice a year.) And is there any surprise that Arena would beat the single Republican running in all 50 aldermanic races? There are no Republican aldermen/women (even if we concede that city elections have recently become "non-partisan&quot . That said, aldermanic races frankly have little to do with the mayoral election. It's not about coattails. It's about specific things that occur in the ward: like vacant lots, like too much or too little development, like garbage pickup. It's rarely ideological. It's largely about constituent services.

Look, this was a 12-point spread. If we want to look for answers, we shouldn't resort to uninformed suggestions that "Republicans" tilted this election. If you want to look anywhere, look to racial relations in this city, which is about evenly divided between whites, blacks, and Latinos. There's a whole lot of distrust and antipathy between the black and Latino communities, and Garcia was not able to move the black community here. It's a sad but true fact that there is competition between these two groups. The demographics are clear: the white vote went largely for Emanuel, the Latino vote went largely for Garcia. The black vote tilted toward the mayor. It's really that simple.