Oh, c’mon.
Everyone is being so mean, beating up on poor Lori Lightfoot for trying to pressure Chicago Public School children into joining her mayoral campaign. The same campaign that sent an email prodding CPS teachers to enlist their charges to spend 12 hours a week working for free for a Chicago mayor sunk to a nadir of unpopularity not seen since Levi Boone closed the city saloons on Sundays.
It isn’t like this is the most questionable gambit to gin up mayoral campaign support in the city’s history. There have been worse.
Remember Joe Gardner? Mild-mannered water reclamation district commissioner. Round glasses. Threw his hat into the ring against Mayor Richard M. Daley in the 1995 primary.
I was sent to attend Gardner’s announcement rally.
Here’s how I later described the event:
I started to notice something strange about the crowd. They seemed a lot more hostile than you would expect from a campaign kick-off crowd, which is normally a pretty cheery bunch. A lot of young, angry guys milling around. I commented to a savvy photographer that I didn’t realize so many young men in baseball caps and oversized pants took such a passionate interest in politics.I had the presence of mind to ask Gardner if he intended on making a policy of recruiting gangs into his campaign.
”They’re Gangster Disciples,” the photographer said. While I didn’t check for membership cards, it certainly seemed to me that Gardner was padding his crowd with gang members.
”I don’t separate people on the basis of gang membership or non-gang membership as long as members and leadership are engaged in positive things,” Gardner replied, before rhapsodizing gangs as an unappreciated force for good, a brand of starry-eyed cluelessness I thought was the exclusive domain of Hyde Park liberals circa 1969.
Daley beat him like a drum, almost 2 to 1.
So give Lightfoot credit. At least she hasn’t reached out to Chicago street gangs. Not yet anyway. And the unwise email to CPS should be a passing embarrassment.