Before a cheering crowd of supporters, U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) on Saturday delivered his harshest criticism yet of Mayor Richard Daley while calling for a massive voter registration drive.
The fiery hourlong speech, filled with stinging rebuke of recent City Hall scandals, further fueled speculation that Jackson intends to run against Daley in the 2007 Democratic mayoral primary.
“For the last six months we’ve read and seen nothing but corruption, greed and malfeasance throughout much of city government,” Jackson said before a crowd of about 300 people inside the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition headquarters, the group founded by his father, Jesse Jackson Sr.
“While the corruption has not directly touched the mayor, it’s all around him,” Jackson said. “As a result, we’ve seen a defensive and angry Mayor Richard M. Daley, but we haven’t seen a responsible and accountable Mayor Daley. Instead of a mayor who says, `The buck stops here,’ we’ve seen a mayor who passes the buck.”
Jackson, 40, a congressman representing part of the South Side and south suburbs for nearly 10 years, has become a leading critic of the Daley administration in recent months, though he has been publicly coy about whether he intends a 2007 bid for mayor after seeking re-election next year.
With many attendees wearing “Jr.” buttons on T-shirts and jacket lapels, Jackson hinted a mayoral run could hinge on whether a groundswell of opposition against Daley grows strong enough during the next two years, especially among what his aides say are 650,000 unregistered voters in the city.
The congressman, who has said only that he would seek re-election for his current seat, is “not closing any doors or ruling out any options,” his spokesman Frank Watkins said.
“I could run for mayor,” Jackson told the crowd. “I have not made that decision yet. With 650,000 unregistered voters, nobody is going to win nothing.”
Seeking help in registering as many as 150,000 new voters, the congressman noted that Daley won his 2003 re-election with just over 363,000 votes, nearly 80 percent of the total.
“If we register half that number, politics in Chicago will become responsive to the people and we can make a difference for everybody,” Jackson said.
Daley, who has not said whether he intends to run for re-election in 2007, was unavailable for comment Saturday, his press secretary said. The mayor’s troubles have taken a toll on his standing among city voters. A Tribune/WGN-TV poll in May found that just under half of voters said they would like to see him run for another term in 2007. And, in a potential contest with Jackson Jr., the survey found the congressman with 40 percent and Daley with 37 percent, and 23 percent undecided.
Although the mayor has made inroads among African-American voters, observers say Daley could face a strong challenge from a minority candidate with strong organizing skills among Democratic core constituencies. Still, Daley has significant financial support and a formidable political organization, and he has said he is willing to “put my record against anyone.”
Jackson’s characterizations of Daley in recent months have grown harsher amid revelations involving the federal Hired Truck Program investigation, scandals at the Water Management Department and problems with the city’s affirmative-action program.
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In the aftermath of Daley’s decision to force out Inspector General Alexander Vroustouris amid a continued shakeup within his administration, Jackson called the mayor’s actions “too little, too late.”
He intensified his remarks Saturday with a string of negative comparisons between the mayor and his father, former Mayor Richard J. Daley–who, during his six terms, won broad support from unions and working-class families that Jackson would need in a 2007 election.
Jackson accused Daley of straying from his father’s working-class ideals, casting him as a friend to corporate interests and private contractors.
In one example, Jackson criticized Daley for his opposition to a proposed ordinance that would require developers of large residential buildings in Chicago to make 15 percent of the units affordable to working-class families.
“Could it be because most of them are campaign contributors?” Jackson said of the developers, as the crowd hooted and cheered. “It’s another instance of the mayor operating politically top down rather than bottom up. That’s not the way the daddy operated.”
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