Chicago Mayoral Contest Begins: Gery Chico Calls for 10 Debates

-By Warner Todd Huston

Well, the field of contenders for Chicago’s mayoral election is taking shape. Hats in the ring currently were tossed by James Meeks, Danny Davis, Miguel del Valle, Carol Moseley Braun, and of course Rahm Emanuel.

Then there is former school board chief Gery Chico. Chico claims that over 50,000 voters signed his petition as he filed them on Monday morning. Chico says “the time to debate is now.”

Mayoral candidate Gery Chico called for at least 10 debates in the neighborhoods of Chicago on Monday, after filing his petition signatures at the Chicago Board of Elections. Chico filed 50,254 signatures and will unveil the first major proposal of the campaign this week.

“I am calling for all the candidates to commit to at least 10 debates in Chicago’s neighborhoods before the election,” Chico said. “The future of our city is at stake and Chicagoans deserve nothing short of a full and vigorous debate of the issues. Let’s debate ways to create more jobs, make our streets safer and fix education and let’s debate them now because Chicago needs a mayor who is ready on Day One.”

My guess is that Rahm will do his best to ignore all contenders and assume the mantle of clear winner. I’d also guess he will refuse all debates until very close to the end of the campaign.

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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson

Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.

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