W.E.B. Du Bois
01-02-2011, 08:57 PM
chicagotribune.com/news/elections/ct-met-danny-davis-01-01-20101231,0,5724476.story
Former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun emerged Friday as the sole major African-American candidate for Chicago mayor when Rep. Danny Davis dropped out in the name of unity.
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The latest shake-up in the contest to succeed long-serving Mayor Richard Daley came after a series of meetings and phone calls among African-American leaders attempting to field a single contender who could improve the odds of electing the city's first black mayor since the late 1980s.
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In a city where race and ethnicity play major roles in local politics, the contest now features former Chicago Board of Education President Gery Chico and City Clerk Miguel del Valle as the only major Latino candidates facing off against Braun and former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.
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Emanuel's campaign, though, isn't expected to cede any ground on African-American voters. Emanuel has pointed out that he was chief of staff to President Barack Obama. The nation's first black president heaped praise on Emanuel this fall when he left to run for mayor. "With all of the challenges we face, we must come together to work on behalf of all Chicagoans and address the needs of every neighborhood," Emanuel said in a statement.
Left unspoken amid the consensus efforts is the blunt assessment by many political players that black and white voters are still focused on race more than two decades after Harold Washington was elected the city's first African-American mayor. Washington was the only black candidate on the ballot when he won his first term in 1983. Black leaders also registered tens of thousands of new voters before that election.
The article doesn't state this (but others have), but what is really going on here is that all of the black candidates are dropping out to rally behind one black candidate (Braun) in order to make an appeal to black voters to vote for the black candidate and thus win the election. I have really been surprised in a bad way by this election in Chicago. I thought that there was some merit to black people voting for a black candidate in order to get their first black mayor. As I followed the story more and saw black candidates essentially making political maneuvers based only upon race, I began to have doubts about this. I'm assuming that the election will come down to Carol Mosely Braun and Rahm Emanuel. I don't like Braun much because I do support President Obama and his coalition (including Emanuel). I disliked Braun's trash-talking about Emanuel.
One thing that really seals it for me is that Chicago has already had its first black mayor. I think that it really is important to break racial barriers and breaking racial barriers is one valid reason to vote for a black candidate. However, the barrier has been broken, so there is no justification for voting based on race. I draw a very sharp distinction there, between breaking a racial barrier and voting based on race in general. With the race barrier already broken, Carol Mosely Braun and her Democratic allies appear to be making the same kind of racist campaigns that kept an earlier generation of black leaders from being elected to political office.
Former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun emerged Friday as the sole major African-American candidate for Chicago mayor when Rep. Danny Davis dropped out in the name of unity.
...
The latest shake-up in the contest to succeed long-serving Mayor Richard Daley came after a series of meetings and phone calls among African-American leaders attempting to field a single contender who could improve the odds of electing the city's first black mayor since the late 1980s.
...
In a city where race and ethnicity play major roles in local politics, the contest now features former Chicago Board of Education President Gery Chico and City Clerk Miguel del Valle as the only major Latino candidates facing off against Braun and former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.
...
Emanuel's campaign, though, isn't expected to cede any ground on African-American voters. Emanuel has pointed out that he was chief of staff to President Barack Obama. The nation's first black president heaped praise on Emanuel this fall when he left to run for mayor. "With all of the challenges we face, we must come together to work on behalf of all Chicagoans and address the needs of every neighborhood," Emanuel said in a statement.
Left unspoken amid the consensus efforts is the blunt assessment by many political players that black and white voters are still focused on race more than two decades after Harold Washington was elected the city's first African-American mayor. Washington was the only black candidate on the ballot when he won his first term in 1983. Black leaders also registered tens of thousands of new voters before that election.
The article doesn't state this (but others have), but what is really going on here is that all of the black candidates are dropping out to rally behind one black candidate (Braun) in order to make an appeal to black voters to vote for the black candidate and thus win the election. I have really been surprised in a bad way by this election in Chicago. I thought that there was some merit to black people voting for a black candidate in order to get their first black mayor. As I followed the story more and saw black candidates essentially making political maneuvers based only upon race, I began to have doubts about this. I'm assuming that the election will come down to Carol Mosely Braun and Rahm Emanuel. I don't like Braun much because I do support President Obama and his coalition (including Emanuel). I disliked Braun's trash-talking about Emanuel.
One thing that really seals it for me is that Chicago has already had its first black mayor. I think that it really is important to break racial barriers and breaking racial barriers is one valid reason to vote for a black candidate. However, the barrier has been broken, so there is no justification for voting based on race. I draw a very sharp distinction there, between breaking a racial barrier and voting based on race in general. With the race barrier already broken, Carol Mosely Braun and her Democratic allies appear to be making the same kind of racist campaigns that kept an earlier generation of black leaders from being elected to political office.