Am I the only one who feels we’re not really in an election year? Virtually every statewide race is pretty much decided and there’s no real chance that either state chamber will switch control. Sure, there are a couple of good congressional races, and the Governor’s race might heat up . . . but really, outside of speculating on John Stroger’s health, there’s not much going on.
So what’s a political junkie to do? This one is going to start speculating about the next election cycle!
We can start with this curious polling:
“Chicagoans overwhelmingly favor wage and benefit standards for Wal-Mart and other “big-box” retailers, even if it places jobs at risk, according to a new poll commissioned by proponents to turn up the heat on the City Council.”
The poll, I think, is part of labor’s newly found aggressiveness in the City of Chicago. Last year, labor unions were stung by the Council’s approval of a WalMart on the city’s West Side.
As Chicago unions looked over the landscape, it appears that they reached two conclusions. First, the Mayor’s power is predicated on a compliant City Council. Second, there is a widespread feeling in City Council that this will be the Mayor’s last term — and now is the time to jockey for position in 2011.
The result? Well, check out these statements made last November by SEIU:
“The SEIU plans to spend the next year or so grading each city alderman based on a handful of criteria, including how they vote on the anti-privatization ordinance, the mayor’s budget, the Wal-Mart living wage bill and the balanced development/fair housing bill. The union plans to create a score card for each alderman and publicize the grades through mailings and television.
“It’s the first time the SEIU has taken such an active role. At this point there are not any alderman in the cross-hairs, and Mayor Richard M. Daley is not being targeted either. Just who the union will go after for replacement won’t be known until all the scores are in. “Any aldermen that are not up to the standard, we will target them for defeat,” Morrison said. “When I say we will target alderman for defeat, we’re not just talking about running some token candidate against them. … Our organization is large. We have 160,000 members in the state — 100,000 of them live in the city of Chicago.” ”
So, for those of you bored with the 2006 elections, take heart! Next year, we’ll be seeing Chicago politics at their finest.
ArchPundit
I’ll bet the Treasurer’s race heats up. Just too much news fodder for the GOP not to try and go for broke on that one.
BP
Backup, I’m betting that the Treasurer’s race is done — Radogno wins.
I think that WakeUpWalMart is also working on a lot of that stuff. There was a blog on their page that talked about the Economic Policy Institute Study on the fact that Walmart can indeed provide better wages and healtcare without raising their profits. http://www.wakeupwalmart.com i think its under the blog or the press release, i forgot.