ON A RECENT WEEKEND, DOROTHY BROWN, the clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County and one Chicago mayoral hopeful, showed up at the Rogers Park home of a family of potential voters. There she talked. She took notes. She ate chicken tandoori. She then slept over.
Mayor Richard Daley, running for re-election for a fifth time, dropped in on a not-for-profit group on the North Side that works with ex-convicts, and he walked away with a basket of soap. The campaign barely came up.
And what of William “Dock” Walls, the former aide to the late Mayor Harold Washington who also is running for mayor? He was simply AWOL. A campaign was in its final weeks, and he was absent at his own event.
Improbably, the goings-on this particular weekend just before the municipal primary suggest that, somewhere in this city, a campaign is taking place. It is simply hard to find.
Even with an election of historic significance–if he is re-elected, Daley is set to surpass his father’s 21 years in office in late 2010–there is little sense that this campaign is historic. Few political ads are on television. Daley has refused to debate the issues with his opponents. Alas, this is what passes for democracy in Chicago.
Perhaps most believe that on Feb. 28, Daley will wake up as mayor-elect for the sixth time. And no one will notice a thing. The seeming lack of interest beyond political circles is, perhaps, a testament to Daley’s grip on power.
The challengers, Brown and Walls, don’t believe a Daley victory is a foregone conclusion. But even to casual observers, their campaigns embodied a Sisyphean quality from the start: the two futilely pushing a boulder up a mountain.
Except in Chicago, Daley isn’t the boulder–he’s the mountain.
Still, Brown and Walls soldier on. Their platforms are jobs, affordable housing, education reform–issues that demand our attention, or at least should.
They accuse Daley of neglecting the city’s poor neighborhoods, as well as being complicit in the corruption federal prosecutors have identified, certain that they can chip away at the mayor’s armor, even if it’s one handshake at a time.
They do this in spite of Daley’s popularity and huge advantage: He had about $5.6 million in his campaign warchest at the end of January, while Brown at year’s end had only $119,000. Walls had even less at the same juncture–$4,000.
Vast numbers of Chicagoans are unaware of the campaign, or perhaps simply content with Daley. But the campaign goes on. It’s there in all its absurdity and earnestness, holding a mirror to a city that allowed a mayor to consolidate vast amounts of power and make himself king.
Sleepover all business
At the sleepover Brown attended, there were no sleeping bags, no truth or dare. It was business first for the Brown campaign on a cold Friday night in Rogers Park.
Brown sat at the dining table with the Patels, an Indian family living in a two-story house near the Devon Avenue corridor. She took diligent notes in her spiral notepad for nearly an hour, discussing safety, schools and the terrible parking situation along Devon. Then, the topics covered and TV cameras gone, Brown settled in for dinner.
This was the first of several neighborhood events she has planned. She spends an evening chatting up a family and addressing their concerns. Then she sleeps in their spare bedroom.
The Patels, Kirit and his wife, Manisha, are a warm, hospitable couple. They won’t relent until you accept tea, soda, food–something–to eat or drink.”The problem is that Daley is too formidable, too powerful,” Kirit Patel said. Brown “was nice. She was listening to our problems. But I still haven’t made up my mind.”
Patel doesn’t know if he’ll even vote.
After the trouble of a dinner and sleepover, it’s not the unequivocal “yes” vote Brown surely had wanted.
So what does Brown believe will happen on Feb. 27?
“I expect the people to go out and speak, and they’ll elect me mayor of Chicago,” she said with a broad smile.
The next day, several dozen Brown supporters gathered in the parking lot of a Rogers Park church. They marched down the sidewalks of Devon, placing signs in storefronts, shaking hands with the Indian and Pakistani business owners.
They chanted, “Look around! Dorothy Brown! Punch three to be free!”
What they lacked in rhythmic phrasing or catchy slogans, they made up with fervor and energy.
Last debate in 1989
The last time Daley took part in a debate was 1989, the year he won office. Since then he has declined all invitations to take part in another and has rebuffed Brown’s and Walls’ calls to debate this election season.
Instead, Daley runs on how he has improved downtown, the city’s falling crime rate, his takeover of the schools, his continuing popularity. He wins with the vast political machine he controls.
Daley has held “campaign” events, but little of the sign-waving, rally-cry variety. They have been mostly private affairs and endorsements by community leaders and members of Congress (Rep. Luis Gutierrez, a one-time Daley critic and potential challenger, endorsed his re-election bid Monday.).
Daley drops into diners to coffee (a word he uses as a verb) with regular folks, he said, but those stops are not announced beforehand.
Terry Peterson, Daley’s campaign manager, agreed the campaign might seem low-key but said the mayor’s campaign itinerary has been non-stop.
“We’re going out on holidays and weekends talking with citizens throughout the city,” Peterson said. “I’m not sure [the media] necessarily covered them.”
Daley keeps his government and campaign appearances separate and distinct. His two events on a recent Saturday morning were part of his mayoral duties. He arrived at his first stop, a non-profit group where ex-convicts create soap and spa products, looking relaxed in a blue shirt unbuttoned at the collar.
This was strictly a “stay on message” event, meaning reporters could only ask questions about the soap program. But at the next appearance, after touting the virtues of solar panels, he took questions.
The topic of the day? Barack Obama had announced his candidacy for president. Daley reciprocated Obama’s earlier endorsement by endorsing Obama right back.
Then a question was asked about his opponents, Brown and Walls. Does Daley think they are formidable challengers?
Daley: “I don’t talk about my opponents. One thing people want to know is what do you stand for? What do you want to do? Tearing down your opponents, and then [not] talk about what you stand for, we see too much of that. One thing I’ve always done is been positive about my campaign. I don’t really talk about my opponents.”
Wall to wall no Walls
On a cold and overcast Sunday, a dozen members of the Moses Grand Lodge at Garfield Boulevard and Ashland Avenue waited in the second-floor meeting area. Folding chairs were set up, maybe 50 in all–clearly an act of extreme optimism. It was noon, and Walls was scheduled to arrive soon for his meet-and-greet, just as the flier read.
Carlos Wills, a steel mill operator, sat on a bench near the back of a room, waiting.
Wills is supporting Daley, for now, because he likes the city as is. Daley’s far from a perfect mayor, he said, but why mess with the status quo? If anything, Wills was disappointed that Brown and Walls likely will split the African-American vote.
There’s no love lost between the two challengers. During a candidate forum at the Trinity United Church of Christ [Daley was a no-show], Brown and Walls called each other liars, among other unflattering terms.
One wonders what would have happened if the Democrats hadn’t taken control of Congress at the midterm elections. What if Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. had thrown his hat in the ring? Rep. Luis Gutierrez?
No matter, Wills was there to give Walls a chance. Noon became 12:30, 12:30 became 1 p.m. Then at 1:30, an organizer walked up to the eight or so remaining people with an announcement.
“He told me to tell everybody, sorry he couldn’t make it. Vote for Bill `Dock’ Walls.”
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kpang@tribune.com
