Jackson Jr. sizing up possible mayoral run

Jackson Jr. sizing up possible mayoral r
September 19, 2006

BY MARY MITCHELL SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

No one can accuse U.S. Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. of not having big dreams. Although the odds were against him, he's come pretty close to getting a third metropolitan airport built, even though the plans have been hijacked by an opposing group. Jackson, 41, was a political novice when he ran for Congress 11 years ago and beat out several seasoned politicians to fill the seat left vacant by a disgraced Mel Reynolds.

Not too long after that, I sat next to Jackson at a luncheon meeting and we talked about his possibly running for mayor someday.

I said back then that in order for him to be successful, a whole new crop of black aldermen would have to be elected, since so many of them have thrown their lot in with Mayor Daley. Those kinds of political ties are rarely broken.

Now, with corruption scandals tarnishing Daley's image, it's not surprising that Jackson's dangling the possibility of giving the mayor a serious challenge.

Despite a Chicago Sun-Times/NBC5 poll that shows even in a crowded field Daley would get 48 percent of the vote, I don't expect those numbers to dissuade Jackson.

Building support with black aldermen



I haven't changed my mind about his not being able to expect the support of ranking black aldermen -- especially after Ald. Isaac Carothers (29th), a staunch Daley ally, unleashed a venomous tirade against Jackson.

At a recent news conference, Carothers, who defeated a Jackson-backed aldermanic challenger in 2003, accused Jackson of being a "do-nothing congressman" with an "ego as big as [a] building."

Apparently, Jackson is taking the Daley loyalists into consideration.

Part of the criteria he said he would need in order to run is for his camp to recruit aldermanic candidates, register 100,000 voters and raise an undisclosed portion of the estimated $6 million he says he will need.

Jackson, however, is being careful about the race factor.

"It cannot be a campaign for African Americans only. It can't be a campaign for Hispanics only. It can't be a campaign for whites only," Jackson has said.

I can see why this strategy makes sense, but some of the most egregious issues -- such as the police torture of black suspects and the inequity in the awarding of city contracts -- did affect black people.

Ironically, it is Daley who is being chastised by both Jackson and U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, neither of whom have formally launched a campaign for mayor, for framing the big-box minimum wage ordinance in racial terms.

"[R]acial polarization has no place in Chicago or in the mayoral election," Jackson told reporters last weekend.

And Gutierrez said he was "taken aback" by Daley's decision to "make this a race issue."

Jackson says the mayor has "no credibility" on the question of race.

"The mayor wasn't a race leader on the question of Jon Burge and wasn't a race leader on contracts," Jackson told me. "Now we are to believe that the mayor is a race leader on the point of jobs?"

"It is unfortunate that the mayor decided to play the race card, and many of our newspapers have forgiven him for it."

Jackson emphatically denied that he ever framed the issue of the third airport and lack of jobs in his district in racial terms.

"The reason people don't identify me as a race leader is no one in Chicago can say that I've interpreted this issue in racial terms," he said.

"The airport discussion has been conducted on the plane of economic equality in the south suburbs and the north suburbs," Jackson said.

Chicago's racial divide



While I don't expect the kind of racial polarization that took place during the campaigns of the late Mayor Harold Washington, I do expect that anyone who challenges Daley won't be afraid to point out that there are still two Chicagos.

One Chicago is thriving economically, and the other has been described as a "food desert."

It's not possible to talk about the differences without noting that the people in the thriving communities are predominantly white and the people in the food deserts are predominantly black -- and without asking why, in 2006, this is still the case.

Jackson, of course, has to pick up substantial votes in all 50 wards to beat Daley, and that means distancing himself from the racial rhetoric of his father, the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Sr.

The father is a black leader. The son is charting a course that will take him away from that label.

"The debate about jobs and the quality of life for Chicagoans is a legitimate debate that needs to be waged. It needs to be waged on working family terms and not racial terms," he said.

Like I said, Jackson is a man who dreams big.