MORE ON CHICAGO:  The Chicago mayoral race was all the rage among analysts this week, but some caution is required.  It is true that Lori Lightfoot, the worst mayor since Biblical times, is out as a result of Tuesday's vote, but the process isn't finished.  The Chicago mayor's contest is done this way:  A bunch of people who aren't in jail, or have finished their terms, run for mayor.  Whoever gets 50 percent wins.  If  no one gets 50 percent, a runoff is held between the top two finishers. 

No one got 50 percent Tuesday, something that never used to happen when they allowed the residents of the cemeteries to vote.  But those were the good old days.  So there will be a runoff in April between two very different candidates.  We aren't out of the woods yet.  The bad guy can win, and the whole process can get Chicago-ugly, which is very ugly indeed. 

Leading the field Tuesday was Paul Vallas, with 34 percent of the vote.  In second place was Brandon Johnson, at 20 percent.  Please note that Vallas is white, and Johnson black.  In Chicago, perhaps the most racialized big city in America, home to the Nation of Islam and the Jesse Jackson forces, that could mean an incendiary contest. 

Both men are Democrats, but Vallas is something of a centrist.  He promises to be a crime fighter and has the backing of the police union.  Johnson, incredibly, is to the left of Lori Lightfoot.  I'm not kidding.  He has favored defunding the police, and is owned, absolutely owned, by the teachers union.  Vallas believes in school choice, Johnson believes what he's told to believe. 

Together, the finalists had 54 percent of the vote.  Where the other 46 percent will go in the April 4th runoff cannot yet be predicted.  One fear is that the pro-Johnson faction will pull the usual Democratic stunt of scaring the daylights out of the black population, suggesting that blacks would be back in chains if Johnson loses.  Then it gets ugly.

Chicago has had similar crises before.  Crime became so bad in the 1960s that the University of Chicago seriously considered leaving the city, with some suggesting that it buy the campus of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.  The university stayed, and launched an "urban renewal" project to improve its neighborhood.

During this current crime wave Chicago has already lost some major companies.  It cannot afford to lose more and still remain a leading city.

March 1, 2023