Ransom Notes

The votes are counted and the voters have spoken. Actually, the voters have yawned. They were under-whelmed by the collection of candidates that were on the ballot yesterday, and the turnout numbers tell more of a story than any election strategy or campaign ad.
I know, the weather contributed to the low turnout. Constant snow might have turned away the faint of heart, but most of the people who stayed away from the polls did so because they didn't think ANY of the candidates were worth their vote.
The real story of this election was written months ago; when it was determined that Todd Stroger was vulnerable as president of the Cook County board of commissioners. That's when the silliness and stupidity started, and it caused otherwise astute public servants to become the worst kind of crabs in a barrel.
Toni Preckwinkle emerged from the scrum for Stroger's seat, finishing well ahead of her closest challenger, Terry O'Brien, and getting more votes than Dorothy Brown and Stroger combined. But did the Black community win?
Stroger was vulnerable for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which being that many voters never forgave him for not being his father, or, even worse, for being his father's son. Stroger's ascension to the top spot was definitely pre-ordained by his father, and he was seen as benefiting from his father's stroke.
Some of Stroger's critics would have you believe that opposition to him stemmed from his pushing of the one-cent sales tax hike. Amazingly, some of those who opposed him actually supported the tax hike, until they were told that it wasn't politic to do so. All of a sudden, they became populists, and fiscal conservatives, and reformers and enemies of patronage.
None of that would have made a difference, however, until that certain group of public servants (the Black ones) bought into the anti-Stroger hype and collectively thought it was an opportunity for them to snatch a little notoriety.
To be sure, some of them probably thought they had to step in and offer themselves up so that there would be a strong (stronger than Stroger) Black candidate, to keep the powerful office in Black hands. I guess it didn't occur to them that by backing Stroger, they would make him a strong candidate. Once Commissioner Forrest Claypool decided to forgo a run, and Tony Peraica finally found an election he could sit out, Stroger's only real competition was from his own community.
I actually like Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County Dorothy Brown. She seems to be good at her job, though she always seems to have her eye on another job. She has a well-known name, and seems to be well liked. But her distant third-place finish (she only bested Stroger) is probably a reflection of voters being turned off by her open lust for advancement.
In the process, their hubris and ambition fractured a Black vote that had been unified only 15 months before around presidential candidate Barack Obama. The dueling press conferences and press releases only served to create fissures in the community as each candidate sloughed off portions of the Black vote, and each candidate claimed to be the choice of the people.
Give credit to Congressman Danny Davis, who, upon seeing the political ruination that was coming, dropped out of the race against Stroger, reasoning that splitting the Black vote would only serve to let someone from outside the Black community replace Stroger. Unfortunately, Davis who improbably was seeking to give up a seat in Congress to gain Stroger's office, stayed in the race too long, and contributed to that feeding frenzy. His subsequent endorsement of Brown was supposed to chase the others out of the race, but Preckwinkle had a plan, and she worked it to alarming success, winning going away.
Make no mistake: the County Board president race was the most illogical and ruinous election in recent history. We had the spectacle of four prominent Black politicians, popular and respected names, lobbing brickbats at each other, questioning qualifications and motives.
Ald. Preckwinkle is now the set to lift the president's gavel - barring a Republican upset - and she comes off as earnest and serious, best at fixing things and working behind the scenes. What that position needs, however, is strong leadership. It would have been nice if someone, anyone, in the Black community, had shown some.

Lou Ransom is the Chicago Defender executive editor.