Mayor Lori Lightfoot is in so much political trouble she may want to consider not even trying to get reelected. — David Axelrod
“After a lot of thought, I have decided I will not be running for mayor but will work with anyone serious about making our city safer." — Arne Duncan
It was just a week ago that Democratic Party campaign guru David Axelrod was waxing authoritatively about the difficult or even impossible road ahead for Illinois and Chicago incumbents Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Mayor Lori Lightfoot in the upcoming elections. Axelrod went so far as to encourage the embattled Lightfoot to forget about running again, to drop out of the race and clear the path for his “close friend and basketball buddy,” Arne Duncan.
Duncan’s strengths are Lightfoot’s weaknesses — fighting crime and playing well with others. He’s a “pass-first guy” — even on the basketball court, Axelrod said.
“She wasn’t part of the political class. That was appealing to people. But governing — running a city — is a different skill set.
Axelrod had made a similar assessment of the last mayor’s race, while not counting her out completely, giving Lightfoot a slim chance against party powerhouses like Bill Daley and — after Rahm Emanuel dropped out — Toni Preckwinkle, only to be as stunned as any of the Democratic Party’s old guard by Lightfoot’s sweep of all 50 Chicago wards.
Now comes the announcement that it’s Duncan cutting and running, not Lightfoot. Even with all the advantages of his past connections to Obama, having a billionaire patron like Laurene Powell Jobs feathering his nest for the past 5 years, and his successful media re-brand as an anti-violence expert, Duncan and his backers must have looked at the numbers and realized he had no path to victory.
Duncan claims he’s dropping out of the race because he loves his current job as head of CRED, a heavily-funded violence intervention group. But the reality is that he offered no real alternative to the mayor whose Achilles heel continues to be the rising gun violence that has been plaguing Chicago and every other big American city.
His on-again/off-again call to defund the police and give hundreds of millions to CRED was gaining no traction within the Party organization or the community. His unwillingness to speak to his past history of failure as CEO of Chicago Public Schools (Renaissance 2010) or as Obama’s Secretary of Education (Race To The Top) smacked of opportunism.
Duncan said in a written statement:
"I am exactly where I need to be, doing the work I love. I have never been part of a more courageous and committed team. The best way I can serve our city is to stay laser focused on reducing gun violence and stay engaged at our sites, on the streets and in the lives of our participants. After a lot of thought, I have decided I will not be running for mayor, but will work with anyone serious about making our city safer.
At least he didn’t say he wanted to spend more time with his family.