Tag: Mayor of Chicago

The April 2 run-off election will be historic: For the first time, Chicago will have a black woman as mayor. Candidates Toni Preckwinkle and Lori Lightfoot are trying to broaden their bases, campaigning in neighborhoods where voters didn’t choose them Tuesday. But as commercials flood the airwaves, political expert Jon Paul Valadez said the race might just be decided on the ground. Large swaths of traditionally black communities chose Willie Wilson. “In order for [Lightfoot and Preckwinkle] to be successful on April 2, they’re going to have to tap into that market.” It’s why Lightfoot was in Englewood on Saturday, kicking off a canvassing operation. … Coming to Englewood makes a difference. I was wondering if Toni would come to Englewood. Preckwinkle, the Cook County Board president, has argued that her decades in city and county government make her the more battle-tested candidate. So, I’ve got experience running a large unit of government, and let me just say, my opponent’s never been elected to office. Never.” “Toni Preckwinkle has been in office a really long time,” Lightfoot said, “and I think people are asking themselves: Is my life any better for her having been in office?

Surprise, surprise. Actor Sean Penn has offered strong praise for the candidacy of Paul Vallas for Chicago mayor, based on their humanitarian work together in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake. “People are thinking politically, and not in terms of service and solution,” Penn told an interviewer for greekreporter.com. “Paul is a service and solution man.” “I have enormous respect for Paul,” said Penn in a video posted online Sunday. “What he’s got is that will of service. It’s everything that we miss in politics today.” Penn gave $5,000 to Vallas’ campaign, the Sun-Times reported in June. Vallas was working on education reform in Haiti after the devastating earthquake when he was introduced to Penn and invited to join the board of JP/HRO, a Haitian nonprofit created by the Oscar-winning actor known for his political and social activism. The organization cared for 60,000 displaced Haitians over a three-year period that followed the earthquake and a subsequent outbreak of cholera. Vallas told the Sun-Times last summer that the Sean Penn he knows is “way more Haiti than Hollywood” and a truly “heroic figure.”