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| Willie Wilson |
Geez, I thought. What’s this about? I pondered, and it came to me. Must be the column on predictions, where I say his becoming mayor would be “the worst possible outcome.”
That didn’t bother him. Just the opposite.
“I like that prediction,” he said. The trouble lay elsewhere.
“That picture you did of me. ... That looked bad.”
I apologized. While he was on the line, I felt obligated to pick his brain and started with a question perplexing many Chicagoans:
What’s wrong with Lori Lightfoot?
“She feels that being mayor gives her the authorization to do things on her own,” Wilson replied. “I think she’s got a complex. She’s a dictator, in my opinion. She’s getting all these kickbacks.”
“Kickbacks”? That’s a serious accusation, I told Wilson. Could you elaborate? Kickbacks in the envelopes stuffed with cash sense? That doesn’t seem the mayor’s brand.
No, he said, contributions to her political fund.
“When I say ‘kickback,’ I mean people who do business with the city, that set up these PACs,” he said. “That’s a conflict. They set up a PAC so they can put more than the limit of $1,500. They’re putting $50,000 or more, and she’s taking it.”
I ran this charge by the mayor’s people. Our conversations revolved around a recent Tim Novak expose pointing to the $68,500 Lightfoot accepted from companies belonging to a city lobbyist, Carmen Rossi. Lightfoot’s spokesperson’s reaction, in essence, was: Whoops. That isn’t like us. We gave the dubious money back.
This is where being really rich helps. Wilson says he’ll accept small donations but not the big chunks of change the mayor accepts if nobody calls her on it.
“I wouldn’t take that kind of money,” he said. “I’ve always been giving that kind of money away.”
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So the fool who has a couple of honorary degrees he flat out bought, want the cops to chase people & endanger the innocent?
ReplyDeleteWe've had totally innocent & uninvolved people killed & injured when the cops were chasing people at high speeds.
Does this fool also want the cops to be shooting at the bad guys when the bad guys are in a crows & most cops are terrible shots?
And that photo you ran last week perfectly showed off Wilson's character.
Haven't we had enough supposedly successful businessmen show us they can run government?
As in Rauner & TFG, both of whom were totally incompetent!
As bad as Lightfoot is & she's really bad at being mayor, Wilson would be even worse! And I admit to voting for her over Taxwinkle, because I feared she would raise taxes again & again, like she does running the county!
Taxwinkle?
DeleteI really, really dislike mocking nicknames. used to diminish people. It's always struck me as a bully move, as per the playbook of the last two GOP presidents.
The rotten nickname is supposed to diminish her! After all, she lied 7 lied about reducing taxes at first & then added taxes, like the asinine pop tax & then bringing back Toddler's 1% sales tax, giving Chicago & many suburbs the highest sales taxes in the country!
DeleteAnd I was far too mild about Wilson's honorary degrees, I should've called them his bullshit honorary degrees! Then he goes out 7 insists to be called Dr Wilson! What a jerk!
Regardless of how he might perform as a mayor, you can’t say his ideas on campaign finance and education are without merit. He probably has other ideas worth considering.
ReplyDeleteA lot of people have ideas about how the city could be run that have merit. That doesn't mean such folks should (or think they should) be put in charge of the third-largest city in the nation.
ReplyDeleteWillie Wilson seems like a good man and, were he not running for mayor (for the third time, after having run for president and senator, as Neil notes), I'd have nothing against him. But, as Clark St. notes, we've tried the "successful businessman will solve government" idea before, and the track record is not great. How 'bout if he runs for alderman, for example, and we all see how he does, before we consider making him mayor?
I'm also aware of a rich, successful guy who bought Twitter for 44 billion dollars who should have stuck to whining about his unfair treatment there, rather than deciding he was the one to make it better.
Has chicago ever had a good mayor let alone an outstanding one? Not in my lifetime thats for sure. If I had to pick the best mayor we've had it would be tough. My favorite was Harold . None of the candidates on the ballot thrill me. I figure it will end up being Chuy or god forbid Vallas.
ReplyDeleteI turned eight when Faley the Elder took office...and I was 29 when he died. He did a lot for Chicago, on both sides of the ledger...good and bad. He definitely screwed over a lot of people...not all of whom were folks But he kept on being re -elected because, as the popular joke of the day went, Chicagoans liked their Dick Daley.
ReplyDeleteThen came the years of turmoil, followed by Daley the Younger, whom I actually voted for before leaving town for good. That's a lot of years of living under Hizzoner and Da Son of Da Mare.
Harold was my favorite, too, and I supported him, but he wasn't around long enough to be much more than a footnote, thanks to all those ribs that stuck to his ribs. He'd have had a long career at Da Hall, had he not died by the knife. And the fork.
After he'd eaten himself to death, I stood in the long slow line, filed past his open casket, then went around the block and did it again. Had my picture taken with him on my wedding day. Ten weeks later...poof. Gone. I liked Harold.
OOPS...that should've been Daley the Elder...no puns were intended there.
ReplyDeleteYou can't say mayor Litefoot doesn't have a plan: https://www.chicago.gov/content/dam/city/sites/public-safety-and-violenc-reduction/pdfs/OurCityOurSafety.pdf
ReplyDelete