Word: mayors
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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THERE are a number of reasons why Alderman Tim Evans didn't win last week's mayoral election in Chicago. The biggest problem was pointed out by Chicago Tribune columnist Mike Royko, the consummate Chicago political pundit. "It boils down to what the late Mayor Richard J. Daley"--father of the new mayor, Richard M. Daley--"used to say when one of his candidates lost. The reporters would ask: 'Why did he lose?' With a straight face, Daley would always say: 'He lost 'cuz he didn't get enough votes...
...reason Mayor Daley won every election he ever ran in--including six for mayor--was that he always made sure that he had enough votes to win, even if he had to buy them or stuff the ballot box. Mayor Washington won his amazing upset in 1983 because the white community was divided, and the Black community--unified around the cause of getting a Black mayor for the first time in Chicago's history--made sure he had enough of their votes...
...Mayor Daley deserved to win because he made sure that he would have enough votes to win from the outset, and he ran a smart, fair campaign. In Chicago, since everyone is a Democrat, political lines must be drawn on different factors. Race is a particularly useful factor for lining up allegiances, since the Black community no longer trusts the white politicians who have abused them for years, and the white community is afraid that Black politicians will allow their city to fall into ruin...
...late Mayor Daley went to great lengths to cultivate this antipathy. He gathered Black votes by saying he was doing everything he could to move them out of the ghettos while at the same time sending a message to white communities that electing him would ensure that Blacks stayed out of their neighborhoods. Harold Washington changed this for a short time by keeping his promises of reform--winning fair and square and giving everyone, white and Black, an equal chance to work for the city or to have their neighborhood receive city funding, and by the time of his reelection...
...order for a Black candidate to win, they must get a large turnout of Black voters and win 15 to 20 percent of white voters. Washington had done this, but Evans could not even get the support of the Black community because he was running in opposition to interim Mayor Eugene Sawyer, a Black man, whose supporters did not take so kindly to Evans saying that he was the one Black politician who could carry on the Washington agenda...