Calling Todd Stroger a “wonderful candidate,” Mayor Richard Daley said Wednesday he fully supports Stroger’s candidacy for Cook County Board president.
Daley said he was prepared to give Stroger “anything that he needs” for the campaign against Republican Tony Peraica.
“He’s going to be a great president of the County Board,” Daley said.
Daley defended the Democratic Party’s slating of Stroger to replace his father, John, on the ballot, saying they followed the process set by state law.
The endorsement was hardly a surprise, as the Daleys and the Strogers have had a decades-old political alliance.
The announcement brought a sarcastic response from the Peraica campaign.
“In other related breaking news, the sun rose in the east this morning,” Peraica spokesman Dan Proft said in a written statement. “The real story in this race is all of the self-identified Democratic voters not supporting Todd Stroger, not the ones who are.”
Stroger accepted the mayor’s support at a news conference in front of a bungalow on the North Side where they both urged the state legislature to extend the 7 percent assessment cap on property taxes.
Stroger pledged that he would not raise property taxes if he were elected. Peraica has repeatedly challenged Stroger to sign a no-tax pledge, which Stroger has declined to do.
When the mayor was asked how much money he was prepared to donate to Stroger’s campaign, Stroger intercepted the question and said, “The mayor has supported me 100 percent. I’ve asked him for all the support that I could get from him. He gave me everything that he had.”
The news conference was held in the 47th Ward, an area represented by Cook County Commissioner Forrest Claypool, who lost a bitter primary race to John Stroger last spring. Claypool has since refused to endorse Todd Stroger, but Daley had some advice for Claypool, his former chief of staff.
Asked what he would say to Claypool, the mayor did not hold back.
“In 1983, I lost to Harold Washington,” Daley said. “It was a very tough fight. But like anything else, the next day I had a breakfast meeting at the Hilton Hotel and I endorsed him. …
“But all of a sudden because you don’t get your own way you decide to walk away. We compete in sports, we compete every day. In other words, we have to have the process move forward.
“If you don’t like it, then fine. … I didn’t have to endorse him. But I understood I lost the election. I didn’t destroy myself, destroy my family. I didn’t destroy my political career. I endorsed Harold Washington, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”
Claypool responded that he supported Washington when Daley ran against him and said, “It’s a real disservice to the memory of Harold Washington for the mayor to compare him to Todd Stroger.
“I didn’t run against Todd Stroger, I ran against John Stroger, who the mayor assured us was recovering and would be on the ballot in the fall,” Claypool said.
———-
mciokajlo@tribune.com
