December 15, 2018
As we get closer to Election Day, the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times will be full of analysis about the election and their “expert” opinions on candidates. It will be primarily fear and propaganda. They will try their best to scare everyone into thinking Chicago will fall apart if Rahm is not re-elected.
I don’t believe anyone on the Chicago Tribune editorial board even lives in Chicago. (Downtown Chicago doesn’t count) I am pretty sure that none of them send their children to Chicago Public Schools. The same with the Chicago School Board. I don’t think anyone of them has children in and/or ever attended CPS. (I’m trying hard to fact-check this. I’ll find out for sure tomorrow)
Anyways, can we just agree to basically ignore their analysis? They don’t have “street cred.” They can’t “objectively” discuss Chicago because they don’t live in, associate with, or cover all of Chicago. They are part of the 1% and can’t analyze Chicago because they are not part of it. Harsh but true. (Check out the Chicago Reader and specifically the work of Ben Jorvasky and Mick Dumke for any sort of objective analysis of Chicago politics)
Although I currently do not live in Chicago, I did for most of my life. I went to CPS schools, worked with CPS schools, and love CPS students. Our schools, our teachers, are not pawns to play with.
Rahm needs to be held accountable for his terrible policies with CPS.
To me, he has to answer the following questions in order to win the election in April:
-How specifically are the children that attended the schools you closed better?
– Why should we believe you, or anyone in your administration, cares about Chicago Public School students or teachers?
– How many Chicago Public School teachers have you had conversations with about your policies?
-Who on your team has an investment in the success of neighborhood Chicago Public Schools? (Besides saying they have an investment in the school. Who is sending their children to CPS?)
Chuy has far harder questions. He has an uphill battle in front of him and very little money for this war. He will have to prove that he can lead Chicago into a more secure financial future. We have money problems. We have race problems. Chicago has a lot of problems.
He has to answer these questions:
-Do “regular white Chicagoans(RWC)” like Chuy? Do they know him? Has he had any experience working with RWC’s?
-Can Chuy get “church-going Blacks(CGB)” to support him? How will he be able to influence this group to vote against who their pastors support and President Obama?
-What is Chuy’s plan for economic development?
-How does he plan on attracting companies and jobs to Chicago?
-What is the plan to fight Rauner’s budget proposal that will devastate Chicago?
-More importantly, Chuy seems like a nice guy. A really nice guy. But can a nice guy govern Chicago?
Fun stuff, I can’t wait to see how this plays out in the upcoming months. Yay, to democracy!!!!
