Rahm Emanuel’s “huge embarrassment”: What it means for liberals — and America
The liberal wing of the Democratic Party can be susceptible to the moral victory fallacy, which in its most degraded form considers a righteous loser preferable to a compromised winner. All the same, its hard not to interpret Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuels Pyrrhic victory on Tuesday as a major win for the partys economically populist wing. After all, this is Chicago were talking about; incumbent mayors expect to be crowned, not subjected to the indignity of actually campaigning for reelection.
Before I take another guess at the results implications, though, heres a quick recap of Chicagos unusually competitive mayoral campaign. If you look at the final results, youll see that Emanuel was far and away the most popular single candidate, logging 45 percent of the vote. Thats more than 10 percentage points higher than Jesus Chuy Garcia, the relatively unknown Cook County commissioner who came in second. But a key thing to understand about this campaign is that Emanuels securing a plurality was never in doubt. He never trailed in the polls, in fact.
The real question, instead, was whether hed be able to win more than 50 percent of the vote, and thus avoid an April runoff election. Historically, this is something Chicagos mayor has almost always accomplished with relative ease; its even more perfunctory than when an incumbent president runs in his partys primary before the general election. Yet despite his national profile, the backing of the citys formidable Democratic machine, an ungodly sum of money, and the support of his former boss (and fellow Chicagoan) President Obama, Emanuel fell short. Experts on Chicago politics described his failure as a huge embarrassment.
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Because while the Democratic Party has more than its fair share of neoliberals i.e., politicians who are socially liberal, fiscally conservative, and more reliant on the support of affluent professionals than organized labor few are as brazen as Rahmbo. As Edward McClelland, Rick Perlstein and others on the left have noted already, Emanuels tenure as mayor has been defined by the kind of aggressive anti-union and pro-corporate initiatives that were once the exclusive purview of the GOP. And politically speaking, the fact that public union membership tends to be disproportionately African-American certainly didnt help.
http://www.salon.com/2015/02/25/rahm_emanuels_huge_embarrassment_what_it_means_for_liberals_and_america/
Regarding the support of affluent professionals
Ever since the teams stadium-improvement plan was approved in July by Mayor Rahm Emanuels hand-picked landmark commission, the Cubs have been accused of bullying rooftop owners. The team plans a Jumbotron screen and a handful of signs in the outfield.
http://chicago.suntimes.com/news-chicago/7/71/307560/rooftop-owners-sue-cubs-ricketts
On edit - I totally pasted the wrongh headline