I supported Lori Lightfoot for mayor. The last thing Chicago needed was Machine Boss Toni Preckwinkle running/ruining Chicago. If things are bad now, they would have been worse under Preckwinkle.
I will not vote for Lori Lightfoot if she officially announces her run for re-election. She is a major disappointment. Lightfoot broke my heart.
Violent crime is an epidemic approaching pandemic status. Instead of firing Superintendent David “Tex” Brown for his incompetence, she props him up. The Chicago Police Department is handcuffed. They get no help from the State’s Attorney or the courts. A double whammy that makes every citizen, tourist, or business traveler a potential victim.
Lightfoot fights with alderpeople, even publicly insulting them. She did not make enough friends and influence enough people to get whatever agenda she had to move forward. Chicago is stalled. It is stuck on stupid.
The Chicago Police Department is bleeding officers who are retiring or transferring to other departments. Chicago Public schools lost 25,000 students over the past two years. People, especially retirees are moving out of Chicago. The marching feet are getting louder every month.
It is only a matter of time before the business community says enough is enough. She will lose their support over a total lack of public safety. She blamed businesses for being crime victims, insulting them. If conditions do not change, major investments will stall. There is only so much chaos investors will tolerate. Chicago is reaching the limit.
Lightfoot turned public safety into an oxymoron in Chicago. There is no safe in Chicago. Lightfoot surrendered and threw her lot in with Machine Boss Toni Preckwinkle and Kim Foxx. They are now frenemies. Preckwinkle and Foxx are helping drive the violence, bloodshed, and murder in Chicago. Their supposed criminal justice reforms failed, yet the mayor stopped criticizing them. It is a good bet she ordered Tex Brown to stop his criticism.
The mayor wears the hat. She is responsible for all the city’s ills under her watch. It may not be fair, but politics, like life, is not fair. She refuses to accept responsibility, accountability, or constructive criticism. She plods along in a stupor, a legend in her own mind. History will not be kind. Lightfoot’s only accomplishment was getting elected. She made history. Big deal. She will make more history when her administration is examined. It will not be pretty.
Chicago is in crisis. Lori Lightfoot does not have the ability to solve the problems the city has now and faces in the near future. Things will only get worse. I talk to a lot of people. I listen in bars, restaurants, coffee shops, and public transportation. When Lightfoot’s name is mentioned, or she is on television, no one has a good thing to say about her. There is ugly name-calling. I live in a fairly progressive neighborhood. My neighbors are fed up. My family members and friends are fed up.
Most mayors in my lifetime were people we loved to hate and hated to love. Lightfoot is hated, period. There is no love. There is not anything to like.
Lightfoot’s campaign fund is small for a big-city mayor. She is not attracting support from major donors because she is doing nothing to improve the conditions in this city. The business community may be silent, but they are voting with their closed checkbooks.
If one of her opponents hooks a whale or two with multi-million-dollar open checkbooks that can pay for bombarding media advertising, Lightfoot will be toast before she begins her campaign.
Lightfoot would not run for a second term in the best of all possible worlds. That will not happen. The next best is if she cannot raise big money and gets a shellacking at the polls. Public safety is going to be the most critical campaign issue. Lightfoot failed from day one.
Lori, you broke my heart.