Chicago’s political leadership is floating a pension buyout program as evidence it is seriously addressing the city’s thirty-six-billion-dollar unfunded pension liability, but Mark Glennon, founder of the Illinois policy research organization Wirepoints, said that the proposal moves debt from one column to another rather than reducing it, and that the broader fiscal picture facing the city continues to deteriorate across every measurable dimension. Audio here.
I like Paul but exactly what demographic does Paul expect to capture in an era of identity politics and culture wars? He’ll have nearly zero non-white vote, and very little lakeshore liberal white vote. He can’t win city hall on the northwest side alone, and even if he made the run off, he’d 100% lose to the non-white person. Rahm realized that in his run off that he was unpopular because he was white and he barely won. That was almost a decade ago and it’s 100x worse now. It’s all identity politics now.
There’s some hope in the Latino wards, it’s not all identity politics, they have a good grasp of the financial situation because they have high homeownership rates. There is a socialist streak brought from their homeland too but it fades as Latinos move up the economic ladder the longer they’re here.
We need either Vallas or Lopez in a run-off but they both might muscle each other out. Both of those candidates are going to have a hard time with the north side progressives and Black communities. Both will do well in on the NW and SW sides and Beverly. The big difference is Lopez will carry most of the Hispanic wards but he doesn’t have the financial backing of a Vallas. Lopez in a run-off w/ Lori will garner all the Hispanic vote. Most of the Black vote would in all likelihood revert back to Lori. Lopez could beat Lori.… Read more »