It was an
opportunity missed.
After 22
years of Richard M. Daley occupying the 5th floor of City Hall, the
possibility of a mayor more in tune with the Black community was staring Black
Chicago right in the face.
And we
blinked.
It is
possible that nothing short of divine intervention could have derailed the Rahm
Emanuel express. It’s possible that only Daley himself could have countered the
impressive $18 million war chest that Emanuel raised. Congratulations to the
new mayor!
But for a
community that kept saying how much it wanted to recreate a Harold Washington
movement here in 2011, there was no Harold magic, no ward by ward get out the
vote campaigns and no filling the coffers of any Black candidate to get
television, radio and newspaper ads.
What we
got was Carol Moseley Braun, former U.S. Senator, ambassador; Illinois state
senator and Cook County Recorder of Deeds. Her qualifications would make her a
frontrunner in any other time, but not only did the press marginalize her, an
awful lot of Black voters marginalized her.
Early on,
Black voters decried the fact that she told organizers that she wouldn’t drop
out of the race even if she were not chosen as the “consensus” candidate by a
coalition of Black politicians and businessmen. Some never forgave her for
reported indiscretions during her campaign for U.S. Senate and her historic one
term in that body.
She was
not Harold. She couldn’t be Harold. But during this campaign, she seemed to be
even a poor facsimile of Carol. She seemed unprepared for the poking and
questioning by the press, and marginal candidates who ended up with less than 3
percent of the vote – combined, goaded her into gaffes.
But this
election was lost long before Carol threw her hat into the ring.
This
election was lost over the last 22 years, because what constitutes Black
leadership in Chicago seemed to be caught with its pants down when Daley
decided he wasn’t going to run for re-election. Since Harold Washington died in
1987, a whole generation of able and qualified aspirants to City Hall have been
co-opted, bought out, or chased away, and when leaders went looking for mayoral
candidates, they found the cupboards largely bare. So we got Cong. Danny Davis,
at 69, running for mayor, a year older than Daley, who was retiring. We got
Braun, who had not been active in politics for nearly 15 years, stepping into
the fray. We had William “Dock” Walls running for this third different post in
the last four years, and we had Patricia Van Pelt Watkins coming out of nowhere
to seek the office of mayor in her first foray into politics. She obviously
didn’t read the book about paying political dues.
This was
a watershed election for Chicago, but especially for Black Chicago. Not only
could we not come up with a “consensus” Black candidate (while the white
community certainly did by sending Tom Dart and Lisa Madigan home to spend more
time with family), we didn’t really support any Black candidate.
The
question remains have we learned our lesson? Can we develop the kind of
political and community leadership that will produce viable candidates for
mayor, or have we missed an opportunity that may not come along again for a
generation?
Copyright
2011 Chicago Defender
