The Epic Failure of Lori Lightfoot
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot failed to qualify for the runoff election in her bid for re-election Tuesday, becoming the first Chicago Mayor in 40 years to lose re-election.
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OPINION
It was a shocking rise and fall from political grace for Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot.
She was a complete unknown to voters when she caught lightning in a bottle, defeating a political institution, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, by a 74% to 26% margin.
Lightfoot was the outsider, the tough talking, no-nonsense, nobody nobody sent.
But Lightfoot became the first elected incumbent to lose re-election since Jane Byrne lost to Harold Washington 40 years ago.
Her 2019 mandate of police and political reform was quickly stalled and erased by launching a war with powerful and insular aldermen followed by the COVID-19 pandemic that changed the face of the city and its downtown epicenter.
Crime, carjackings, and social unrest changed the focus of the city’s residents and Lightfoot could never seemingly get her hands around the problem.
Lightfoot did deliver on some policy promises, including a downtown casino and extension of the CTA’s Red Line from 95th to 130th Street.
In the end, though, it seemed as if the Mayor had a hard time getting along with people.
From a good piece by WBEZ:
Lightfoot’s hard-line negotiating skills resulted in some of the most criticism from across the city’s power bases. Despite initially supporting a proposal to increase the city’s one-time real estate transfer tax to fund homeless prevention and housing, Lightfoot fought it, and to some, excluded from the conversation those who could help find a compromise.
“She kind of pushed folks away from the table … and just was like, ‘I’m going my own way with this and I’m drawing a really hard line in the sand about how I’m going to approach this policy,” [progressive political consultant Rebecca] Williams said.
In her 2019 inaugural address, Lightfoot wasted no time expressing her intentions to make good on one of her campaign-trail promises: to end “shady backroom deals” in City Council.
The crowd erupted in applause, but aldermen sat silent when Lightfoot turned to face them as she declared: “These practices have gone on here for decades. … Stopping it isn’t just in the city’s interest. It’s in the City Council’s own interest.”
Though he didn’t think much of the comment back then, Ald. Matt O’Shea, 19th Ward, said in retrospect, it’s a tone symbolic of Lightfoot’s dealings with the council.
“Looking back, that was the first sign — the first sign that the mayor wasn’t as interested in collaboration as many of us thought,” O’Shea said.
It certainly appears Lightfoot burned too many bridges and didn’t pay enough attention to the major boiling issue of crime to be a viable candidate for a second term.
An opportunity wasted, indeed.