There was a palpable awkwardness as Toni Preckwinkle sat alone for more than a half-hour in front of the Rainbow/PUSH postelection unity event as speakers praised the vanquished candidate to fill time until Mayor-elect Lori Lightfoot arrived to join her.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson used some of the time to warn against the prospect of a weakened Preckwinkle, and alluded to efforts to oust her onetime top staffer and now Cook County state’s attorney, Kim Foxx, who has been under fire for her handling of the Jussie Smollett case.
“The same people who rejoiced in the victory last night of Lori, they’re going to see right past Kim and try to remove Toni too. If they sense any gap in our enthusiasm, Toni will be next,” Jackson said. “If we close the gap, it won’t happen.”
In vintage form, Jackson then asked the room full of religious and community leaders to repeat after him: “Toni is the president of the Cook County Board and of all Democrats. We shall fight to maintain her gain.” As the room followed Jackson’s lead, Preckwinkle sat by, smiled and mouthed, “Thank you.”
Despite her massive runoff defeat in losing all 50 wards after decades in Chicago politics, Preckwinkle continues on as president of the Cook County Board until 2022. While her political strength on the County Board may be weakened, it is her tenure as chair of the Cook County Democratic organization that could be more quickly called into question.
The position of county Democratic chair once had power equivalent to the highest levels of elected local office, with the ability to make or break candidates from local to statewide office.
While the power diminished over the years, the county chair still decided who was worthy of climbing the political ladder in local governance — who deserved to move on and who deserved to step out. The ultimate strength of the county’s Democratic Party chair relies on the organization’s ability to deliver votes to favored candidates at the ballot box.
“It’s all about how many votes you can bring in. That’s all that matters,” University of Illinois political scientist Chris Mooney said. “She can’t bring in the votes? Then the question people are going to be asking is, ‘What good is she?’ ”
For her part, Preckwinkle said only “yes, thank you” when asked by a reporter following the unity event Wednesday whether she intended to continue on in her role as county party chair.
The scale of Tuesday’s results goes beyond a mere personal political defeat for Preckwinkle to also raise the issue of the relevancy of the county Democratic organization — its once vaunted machine politics under the late Mayor Richard J. Daley vastly weakened over the intervening decades to become largely a catchphrase of political attacks.
The days of rampant patronage, used to enforce loyalty throughout the ranks, have faded under an era of federal consent decrees regarding political hiring. Though Preckwinkle billed herself in one mayoral ad as a “boss,” it was largely in title only.
As a result, Preckwinkle found herself subject to several moves that might have been considered “defections” in previous decades as some aldermen and other Democratic power players and party allies endorsed Lightfoot’s candidacy, sensing where the wind was blowing, with little to fear in terms of party retribution.
For Preckwinkle, any value of heading the party organization also was negated by its own highly visible stumbles.
Preckwinkle’s predecessor as county Democratic chair, Joe Berrios, saw his real estate assessment practices shown to be unfair by benefiting wealthy homeowners at the expense of poorer homeowners. Berrios was unceremoniously dumped as county party chair last April, a month after challenger Fritz Kaegi defeated him in the Democratic primary for assessor.
Preckwinkle — who had been a staunch Berrios defender — picked up the party chairmanship along with the baggage that went with it.
Then, after launching her mayoral bid following Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s decision not to seek a third term, there was the federal complaint filed against Ald. Edward Burke, 14th, in January. Federal prosecutors alleged Burke attempted to use his aldermanic control over zoning to shake down a business in exchange for legal work for his property tax-appeals law firm. Federal authorities also alleged Burke illegally solicited a $10,000 campaign contribution that sources said was intended for Preckwinkle. She denied having any knowledge of his actions, but said she would return more than $100,000 in campaign contributions she raised when the longtime alderman hosted a fundraiser for her at his home.
Burke, the dean of the City Council, denied any wrongdoing and even won re-election to another term in February. But his long-standing party role of making county judges as the top Democratic judicial slatemaker was taken away while Preckwinkle was forced to deal with the aftermath of the federal investigation at City Hall.
One ward committeeman, a Preckwinkle ally, said that to her credit, the party organization has evolved from decades ago when it was a group largely run by white men with Irish surnames to its current iteration that reflects more of the city’s racial and ethnic makeup. Preckwinkle, herself, became the county’s first African-American Democratic chair.
Yet it is the group’s lack of nimbleness to deal with the further-leftward movement of insurgent progressives that has branded the county organization as too establishment, said the committeeman, who asked not to be identified to speak freely about the problems facing the local party.
“The identity crisis that I think the Cook County Democratic Party is dealing with, and so is the Democratic Party nationwide … is this unbelievable wave of anti-establishment,” the committeeman said. “It’s befuddling because it would appear that the voters, in so many instances, election after election, are willing to go with the person who is the outsider.”
The magnitude of Preckwinkle’s loss Tuesday, from the ward to precinct levels, also was shown in that she was only able to add about 40,000 votes citywide from Feb. 26, when she finished second among a field of 14 candidates to advance to the head-to-head runoff against Lightfoot.
“She can succeed as a County Board president and carry on in her competent way, but the party? That’s a separate issue. The smart ones will ask, ‘How did we lose by 50 points here?’ ” Mooney said, adding, “Being a member of that establishment is not a positive thing in voters’ minds.”
Preckwinkle’s fortunes have come a long way from only seven years ago when she was hailed as one of eight “public officials of the year” and pictured on the cover of Governing magazine. Now, in what she has said is her third and final term as County Board president, political talk of succession at both the party and county levels is beginning while supporters seek to dampen any talk of a shift in power.
At Preckwinkle’s election night event, ally and Ald. Sophia King, 4th, sought to dispel any talk of lame-duck status, noting she would “still be the president of the Cook County Board, she will still be the leader of the Democratic Party, and she will continue to fight for these ideals and we will be right behind fighting for those ideals for years to come.”
Back at Rainbow/PUSH, Robert Reiter, president of the Chicago Federation of Labor, the umbrella organization for nearly 300 unions, said he considered Preckwinkle “a friend and ally.”
“We need to make sure we give her the power to continue to do the things she’s done to strengthen not just this county but, more specifically, this city,” he said. “And I look forward to continue that strong partnership with Toni and make sure we all do what we can to support her.”
For the record, the city’s labor federation stayed neutral in the mayor’s race.
Chicago Tribune’s Bill Ruthhart and Juan Perez Jr. contributed.
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