And Then There Were 23...And Jackson Jr. Stirs The Pot for 2007

By vouchey in News on Feb 28, 2005 12:53PM

Because Chicagoist takes its job of repeating what is already printed in the newspapers very seriously, we thought it was important to mention last Friday's big news of six new people indicted in the Hired Truck Scandal. The charges are more of the same, shaking down trucking company owners for bribes. Probably the most interesting news is that one, there are so many people people charged -- twenty-three -- and two, that Don Tomczak, the former Water Department number two, used the shakedown money to keep a string of girlfriends in velvet while he was running the scams.

Meanwhile, Laura Washington of the Sun Times today writes an interesting between-the-lines column about Cong. Jesse Jackson, Jr. Washington, an African-American that seems to be the only major columnist in Chicago writing authoritatively about South Side black politics, teases out Jackson's various shots at Mayor Richard M. Daley and concludes Jackson is clearly running for Mayor in 2007.

Looking at Jackson's recent press visibility, one might think his aspirations are obvious. But just last month Sun Times' Lynn Sweet suggested that Jackson's doing all this just to get his Peotone airport.

Hogwash, Chicagoist says. Jackson's running for mayor, and he's just denying it publically because he doesn't want to invite any other minority candidates into the race. First, he needs to set up a solid organization within the African-American community, and then he can start working on Latinos, if Cong. Luis Gutierrez hasn't done that already. Because who knows, Luis might want to run in 2007 too.