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By the time this newspaper lands in your hands, you readers will likely know the results of Tuesday’s election (pending some sort of recount, that is).
So by now, you’re probably thinking about how great it will be to not have to see anymore of those political ads.
Boy, it’s going to be great to not have to endure the mud-slinging at every commercial break, right? Wrong.
As one barrage of political ads is ending, another one is about to begin. That’s right, the mayoral race in Chicago is around the corner.
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water….
To be fair, the Chicago mayoral race had something of a non-start already.
Karen Lewis, former president of the Chicago Teacher’s Union, had been testing the waters earlier this fall to see if the public would be open to her running for mayor.
Lewis ended up having a brain tumor and effectively ended her intentions of running for mayor.
Before Lewis dropped out of the race, however, many news outlets were touting her as a favorite in the election.
Certainly she had a lot of media prowess and served as a vastly more dependable and amiable face to the teacher’s union than Emanuel has been. Alas, all that media buzz seems to have been for nothing now and with an election coming in Feb. 24, the time for a real challenger of Emanuel to come forth is now.
But the waters have grown calm on the mayoral front due to the more pressing gubernatorial election between Pat Quinn and Bruce Rauner.
However, I think we might get a little lucky with the next series of elections and advertisements.
Due to Lewis’s non-start, we might get a little lucky in the fact that no other challenger seems to have risen to the ranks of Lewis to challenge Rahm Emanuel.
The media attention for these other contenders has been so little compared to that of Lewis that I was not even sure who the other official candidates for mayor were.
Emanuel certainly does not have this election locked down, far from it. According to an article by the Christian Science Monitor’s Mark Guarino, “Facing reelection, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel sees falling poll numbers,” (published this August) Emanuel’s approval ratings are close to 35%.
This mayor is hardly Richard M. Daley (or Richard J. Daley) for that matter. No re-election is guaranteed for this current mayor.
What Emanuel has in his favor is that the Chicago mayoral happens very early in 2015.
No candidate will really have the time to launch the sort of media blitzkrieg that Bruce Rauner unleashed on Pat Quinn this year.
I’m sure that when a serious contender does challenge Emanuel there will be a variety of media spots that all those living in the Chicagoland area will become very sick of.
However, Emanuel is one of the most affluent of all the candidates running for mayor. If a media blitzkrieg is going to come from anyone, it is likely to come from Emanuel.
He’s got the green so he’ll likely get the time on screen.
Though, I even wonder if Emanuel needs to put forth any sort of media rush. He’s the mayor. He makes the news almost every night and always seems to be in the consciousness of Chicagoans.
So, for all of you breathing a sigh of relief about how now that you will not have to endure anymore political ads this year, wait before you exhale.
This column was originally going to be about how I hate political ads, but that would just be white noise. Everybody hates political ads.
Then I was going to write about how I’m glad the political ads are over and review the election season, but then I realized that we are not out of the woods yet.
We made it out of the woods with governor’s race; hopefully it won’t be as bad with the mayoral race.
Brian Laughran
Editor-in-Chief
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