Lori Lightfoot - "It's a tough time to be mayor."

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Little Raven
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Lori Lightfoot - "It's a tough time to be mayor."

Post by Little Raven »

Kara Fisher sits down for a chat with Lori Lightfoot
When I came into office, a lot of people were like, ugh, we don’t know this Lightfoot woman. She doesn’t seem to understand business. She doesn’t seem to understand this and that. I mean, those are very common tropes thrown against women, people of color. But what I do know is that if our city doesn’t grow by investing in neighborhoods that have been long ignored, all the challenges of violence, health care disparities, life expectancy, those will continue to deepen.

I think the biggest challenge, obviously, that we face is the pandemic. There absolutely is no playbook for that. I don’t know of any mayor — and I speak regularly with my peers across the country — who was prepared to deal with the incredibly difficult, nuanced challenges, and then on top of that, the huge economic meltdown, coupled with massive civic unrest, an important focus on systemic racism. All of those things being compressed together in about six months’ time, that was a huge, huge challenge.
There's a lot more, obviously. Lori clearly sees herself as an agent of change who's mission is to "disrupt the status quo." Not living anywhere near Chicago, I am in absolutely no position to judge how effective she is at that. The press that Chicago gets down in Texas tends to be negative, but that's probably a very incomplete picture - bad news always travels farther, after all.

She won't commit to running again, but she certainly sounds like she wants to.
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Holman
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Re: Lori Lightfoot - "It's a tough time to be mayor."

Post by Holman »

Little Raven wrote: Mon Jul 26, 2021 4:46 pm Lori clearly sees herself as an agent of change who's mission is to "disrupt the status quo."
I know literally nothing of Chicago politics, but it has been many decades since a politician could run on maintaining the status quo.

Even Reagan's "stay the course" meant "continue the conservative revolution."
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Re: Lori Lightfoot - "It's a tough time to be mayor."

Post by Paingod »

Holman wrote: Mon Jul 26, 2021 6:25 pmEven Reagan's "stay the course" meant "continue the conservative revolution."
Well, yeah. When you've set the tracks to run the train over the cliff, staying the course means running off the cliff.

What baffles me and will for some time is why the opposition team watched the rails being laid, watched the engine get built, watched the fuel getting added, watched the cars being hitched, watched the engineer climb in, watched the steam start chugging, watched the train build momentum ... and still sit in the fucking caboose arguing over who's going to get the window seats.
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Re: Lori Lightfoot - "It's a tough time to be mayor."

Post by hepcat »

I wanted to like her after she was elected, but she has left a trail of questionable actions in her wake. She also has a history of treating people like shit. At least according to various lawsuits and former staff member anecdotes.
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Re: Lori Lightfoot - "It's a tough time to be mayor."

Post by Zarathud »

Lori is not an effective leader, she’s used to pushing people around to get her way. She alienates people then blames them for not following her.

She was hoping that alienating the Chicago machine would endear her to voters. The pandemic has given her an excuse to do poorly, and we’ll see how long it lasts.

Lori is right that many neighborhoods have not received investments. That’s going to be tricky as infrastructure money alone does not change neighborhoods. There are a lot of messed up communities where there are no easy answers.
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Re: Lori Lightfoot - "It's a tough time to be mayor."

Post by Archinerd »

Recognizing that things aren't going to change over night, I was willing to give her the benefit of doubt, but I've since soured on her.
The turning point for me was her handling of the wrongful police raid on an innocent woman who was held handcuffed and naked for hours. News of it came out at the beginning of 2020, but it was later revealed that Lori had known of it for months and seemingly hadn't done anything to address it in any meaningful way. Not a good start for someone who campaigned on police reform and accountability in the wake of the Laquan McDonald shooting.
Her change of stance on an elected school board didn't do anything to improve my opinion of her.
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Re: Lori Lightfoot - "It's a tough time to be mayor."

Post by Isgrimnur »

USA Today
Lori Lightfoot lost her bid for a second term as Chicago mayor Tuesday in the nation's third-largest city after facing widespread criticism over her divisive leadership and the city's increase in crime.

Paul Vallas and Brandon Johnson will advance to the April 4 runoff to be the next mayor of Chicago after none of the nine candidates won a majority in the officially nonpartisan election.
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Re: Lori Lightfoot - "It's a tough time to be mayor."

Post by Unagi »

Up next:
172,093 votes:: Paul Vallas - history of educational admin/and political science. 69 yo, white guy. campaign: tougher on crime - ideas on education/increased school day hours
103,387 votes:: Brandon Johnson - teacher/Cook County Commission. 46 yo, black guy. campaign: emphasized funding and resources for public schools / non-police responses to mental health emergencies

both are Democrats.

I think Johnson will win the runoff. If so, it would be interesting to see what Chicago does with a mayor that has such a deep history with the Chicago Teachers Union.
I think that's who I'd like to win. I've moved to the suburbs, so I don't have a vote - but I think he would be best.


btw
Lori Lightfoot got 86,952 votes.
Jesús G. García got 70,006.
Willie Wilson got 48,658.
and 4 others shared about 28,000.

So there are about 47% of the voters that will either sit this out now or need to pick one of the above. I'm guessing that the majority of return voters from Lightfoot and García alone will make up the difference for Johnson.
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Re: Lori Lightfoot - "It's a tough time to be mayor."

Post by ImLawBoy »

I'm likely to vote for Johnson, but I have a feeling Vallas will pull this out. He's nominally a Democrat, but he's running a very pro law and order campaign and is endorsed by the FOP and one of their lodge presidents John Catanzara, a noted MAGA guy who recently hosted DeSantis for a talk in the suburbs. One thing that non city folk don't necessarily realize about big city politics when they say that big cities are so awful because they're run by Democrats is that city level Democrats are quite different from national level Democrats. My alderman identifies as a Democrat, but I bet if you found his previous ballots he'd have checked off Trump in the last two elections.

My wife thinks that the teacher's union endorsement will help Johnson, but it didn't do much to help Toni Preckwinkle when she got routed by Lightfoot in the runoff last time.
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Unagi
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Re: Lori Lightfoot - "It's a tough time to be mayor."

Post by Unagi »

I would like to say that I love the name, Sophia King.

I think it's Sophia King good and I'm sad I only just now noticed it.
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Re: Lori Lightfoot - "It's a tough time to be mayor."

Post by Isgrimnur »

It's almost as if people are the problem.
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Re: Lori Lightfoot - "It's a tough time to be mayor."

Post by Kraken »

IDK anything about Chicago politics, but this fellow seems hopeful.

I suppose all new administrations start out hopeful. Remember when we thought trump might grow into the job? Or that the adults in the GOP would rein him in?
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Unagi
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Re: Lori Lightfoot - "It's a tough time to be mayor."

Post by Unagi »

I'm happy he won but I'm not expecting any massive changes. Personally, I just felt that it was time to give the Teachers Union a bite at the apple, and Johnson seems more the guy for that. Chicago vs. The Teachers Union is a constant in the city, and I'm sorry - but the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police sucks ass. They actually endorsed Darren Bailey for Governor here... so their endorsement of Vallas made me shudder to think of what Vallas was hiding.
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Re: Lori Lightfoot - "It's a tough time to be mayor."

Post by Smoove_B »

Looking forward to hearing how Chicago is going to fill all those job openings in the police department after all those officers quit.
Maybe next year, maybe no go
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Unagi
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Re: Lori Lightfoot - "It's a tough time to be mayor."

Post by Unagi »

Smoove_B wrote: Wed Apr 05, 2023 10:00 am Looking forward to hearing how Chicago is going to fill all those job openings in the police department after all those officers quit.
Me too. :horse:
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Re: Lori Lightfoot - "It's a tough time to be mayor."

Post by ImLawBoy »

I continue to have concerns about Johnson, most notably about how he'll deal with the teachers' union, but I still voted for him over Vallas. With Vallas I think we were almost certain to have a lengthy teacher strike and I worried that his election might embolden some of the less savory elements of the Chicago Police Department.
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Unagi
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Re: Lori Lightfoot - "It's a tough time to be mayor."

Post by Unagi »

ImLawBoy wrote: Wed Apr 05, 2023 10:12 am With Vallas I think we were almost certain to have a lengthy teacher strike and I worried that his election might embolden some of the less savory elements of the Chicago Police Department.
Exactly my concerns as well.
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Re: Lori Lightfoot - "It's a tough time to be mayor."

Post by Zarathud »

Chicago needs someone with a broad constituency to get things done — there are a lot of schools that should be closed and CPS administration is ridiculous, but Vallas would have done it in the worst way. His candidacy recalled some ugly 80s tropes about city living.

My hope is that Johnson moderates some of his proposals, or the Adlermen push back when it comes time to voting. We’ll see.
"If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts." - Albert Einstein
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Re: Lori Lightfoot - "It's a tough time to be mayor."

Post by LawBeefaroni »

Hopefully now we'll all stop getting 15 full page flyers in the mail every day.


My biggest issue, as it always is, is that someone who got less than 25% of the vote in the general election is now Mayor. Even Vallas, with his "dominant" 32% in the general, would be problematic. Voters are disillusioned.

We need ranked choice.

Random thoughts:

CTU is more a political party than a labor union.

FOP is an insane clown posse.

We need more police resources. Not necessarily all cops, though we do need more POs. But also mental health and social service specialists that they can call in.

Schools are a disaster. The inequity is unbelievable. We have some "public" schools raising $1M at their galas while other schools can't afford teachers.
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