July 23, 2010 Southwest News-Herald - City & Suburban
What’s Behind Daley’s Polling Numbers Story?
It happens every four years like clockwork. A major Chicago newspaper in partnership with a major Chicago TV station will report in screaming headlines that Mayor Daley’s polling numbers are significantly low.
The stories usually break about seven months before Mayor Daley has to run for re-election.
Sure enough, a new poll says that 53 percent of Chicago voters do not want to see Mayor Daley run for a record seventh term as the city’s mayor.
Of course they say that. Voters always will say no when you ask them how they feel about almost any politician, especially when you preface it with the notion that Daley has been Chicago’s longest serving chief executive officer, serving longer than his father, the late Mayor Richard J. Daley.
The stories always claim the numbers reflect controversies: Daley’s failure to win the 2016 Olympics. The repeated acts of gun violence by street gang members taking young innocent lives, or the murder of a Chicago police officer. And in-between, there are a few of the usual scandals.
What’s the real story? Well, let me put it bluntly. The news media wants controversy. The media starts pumping up the “recruitment” stories, trying to persuade someone out there to run against Mayor Daley.
Egos are huge out there and the news media knows it. And nothing is more ego-boosting than a candidacy for mayor, announced after the mainstream media says Mayor Daley is vulnerable.
It’s not enough to be a “bad” mayor — not saying Daley is bad. Chicago voters don’t vote for the best candidate, anyway. They vote for the least “worst” candidate.
Mayor Daley is a good mayor. Sure, there are controversies, mostly the result of some of the poor choices he has made to head departments. Daley has many people who answer to him, and a few have gone to jail. He heads up one of the nation’s largest corporations, with some 34,000 city employees, not including the thousands of police and firefighters out there.
But it comes down to an election attitude that should be Chicago’s motto: “Things could be worse.”
Yes, it could be worse. But that isn’t a reason to throw someone out of office. Daley can have the worst polling numbers out there but until someone better qualified steps up to the plate to run, Daley is a shoe-in (even if only 31 percent of the voters think he is doing a good job).
According to the poll, 31 percent strongly support the mayor for re-election, and that is huge in Chicago, a city where only 50 percent of the people who qualify to vote actually register and only 40 percent of those who register actually vote.
Until a charismatic inspirational alternative steps up to the plate — and waiting until a few months before the filing deadline is not a good omen — no one can beat Mayor Daley.
Daley is likable. He has the power of incumbency, and the backing of many powerful constituent groups and organizations behind him. When he turns up the campaign fires, he can easily turn the numbers around on anyone.
When that happens, the news media will fall in line and they will pull the rug out from anyone who takes their bait and tries to challenge Daley.
Is there a better candidate out there to beat Daley? Probably. Will one of them run? Unlikely. So I am happy to take Mayor Daley and all the so-called scandals. What alternative candidate could head this city and not have scandal?
(Ray Hanania is an award-winning columnist, radio talk show host and a Chicago area media consultant. He may be reached at rayhanania@comcast.net.)
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