Countdown to Rahmageddon: The Race for Second Place Continues

By Chuck Sudo in News on Feb 14, 2011 3:38PM

With a week left before the polls open, two questions remain in the mayoral race. Who will come in second to Rahm Emanuel? And will that second place finisher be able to force an April runoff with Emanuel? Gery Chico seems like the most likely of the major candidates to be able to pull this off. He's found a bullet point issue to attack Emanuel with "the Rahm Tax" and has been repeating it ad nauseam in campaign ads, mailers and even a website. As we mentioned last week, Chico will keep beating people over the head with this so long as Emanuel refuses to define those "luxury items" that would be subject to his proposed tax swap, in exchange for a 20 percent decrease in the city's portion of the sales tax, hoping that our collective Pavlovian negative response toward the word "tax" will sway undecideds in his favor. If that doesn't work, Chico's already shown that he's shameless enough to use the "he isn't from Chicago" argument.

But would he accept the endorsement of the Chicago Tea Party Patriots? That organization has taken its irrational hatred of all things related to Barack Obama to a logical conclusion (emphasis theirs).

Rahm Emanuel, has promised, as he has done while working for Barack Obama, to raise our taxes. As a progressive liberal, he knows no better.

Bringing the American tradition of free markets back to Chicago so that small businesses are free from the tyranny of Barack Obama and Rahm Emanuel’s hostile tax and spend agenda is the #1 priority of Gery Chico.

I know many of you are scratching your heads, asking, “In Chicago?”

Is Gery Chico Jim DeMint?

No.

Is Gery Chico a tea partier?

No.

Is Gery Chico honest?

Yes.

Gery Chico is running to the right of Rahm Emanuel.

Gery Chico is running in second.

Gery Chico loves our city and our country just like you and me.

Gery Chico is a friend to businesses and taxpayers. Can you honestly say that about Rahm Emanuel?

Chico hasn't accepted the endorsement, but that hasn't stopped Miguel del Valle from using it to attack him. "Personally, this is an endorsement that I would never accept," candidate Miguel del Valle during a press conference yesterday. "The Tea Party's positions on everything from immigration reform to health care reform are not aligned with the needs and wants of the people of Chicago."

Then there's the crazy cat lady of this campaign, Carol Moseley Braun. One would think at this point that someone in her camp would sit her down and remind her of all the times where speaking has gotten her into trouble. At a campaign appearance yesterday, Braun said that a poll (that she paid for, natch) shows her in second place behind Emanuel. Then she said she would talk no more about polls.

That was followed by a bizarre attempt at humor, comparing the Jewish Emanuel's carefully crafted "Rahmformer" image in this campaign to the movie The Producers.

She said Emanuel’s “so kind, so nice’’ image in his campaign commercials belied his record as a congressman of voting against 128 bills sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus and reminded her of the character in “The Producers,” who was “still in love with the Furher, which was Adolf Hitler,’’ she said.

She paused, waiting for the laughter.

It did not come.

“You don’t get the joke,’’ she said. “OK. We get the kind man, the gentle man on television and not the person who voted against $5 million for food aid to Africa.’’

After the rally, Braun took questions from reporters. The first question was whether she was comparing Emanuel, who is Jewish, to Hitler.

Braun looked stunned.

“That’s the problem with making jokes with you-all around,’’ she said. “I was not comparing him to Adolph Hitler.’’

Braun had noted African American intellectual Dr. Cornell West in tow, which was ironic, given that she's attacked Rahm Emanuel and his endorsement by former President Bill Clinton as "an outsider supporting an outsider."