Vallas, Johnson stumble as they walk back

& Tweet Madness is in full swing

3-16-2023 (issue No. 79)

Eric Zorn is a former opinion columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Find a longer bio and contact information here. This issue exceeds in size the maximum length for a standard email. To read the entire issue in your browser, click on the headline link above.

This week I’m heavy on the Chicago mayor’s race.

• ‘I never said exactly that’ — Johnson and Vallas edge away from their former statements

• Brandon Johnson takes me to task

• Last week’s winning tweet

• Martire: Vallas is not blameless when it comes to the city’s pension woes

• Ja’Mal Green gives progressives permission to vote for Vallas

• Gannett is the worst

• Mary Schmich — A jolt of insight

• “The Mincing Rascals” preview

• Re:Tweets — The annual Tweet Madness tournament is underway

• Tune of the Week — The best mashup you’ve ever heard

‘I never said exactly that’ — Johnson and Vallas edge away from their former statements

I co-moderated Tuesday evening’s mayoral debate (when did we agree to start calling these events “forums”?) on the subject of public safety. One of the main goals that co-moderator Laura Washington and I had going in was to get the candidates to answer two very common questions I’ve heard from Chicago voters:

• What does or did Brandon Johnson mean when he expressed support for the “defund the police” movement?

• What does or did Paul Vallas mean when he said or indicated that he wanted to take the “handcuffs” off of police?

Here are excerpts of media coverage of the debate that addresses these questions:

Tribune:

Asked about his previous support for the “defund the police” movement — including a declaration that it isn’t a slogan but a “real political goal” — Johnson said, “I said it was a political goal. I never said it was mine.”

Vallas, meanwhile, was asked about his calls to “take the handcuffs off the police,” which he denied.

“Well, please let me know where I said that because … I’ve avoided using that rhetoric, and if I haven’t, I’d be surprised by that quote, because I’ve been careful not to say that one,” Vallas said. …

Both answers were misleading.

Starting in 2020, Johnson repeatedly made remarks endorsing activist-backed calls to reallocate police budgets and send the funds to other agencies in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police. Since entering the mayor’s race, he has backed away from such calls and said he would keep the Police Department’s spending as it is.

He did, however, make efforts as a county commissioner to redirect money from law enforcement, including the Cook County sheriff’s office.

In 2020, Johnson spoke on a panel titled “We Don’t Call Police: A Town Hall on a Police-Free Future,” where he praised organizers for pushing “an agenda that actually can transform people’s lives.”

“And part of it is removing ourselves away from this, you know, state-sponsored policing,” Johnson said.

He also criticized Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s opposition to “defund the police,” saying the movement is “not just admirable, but it’s necessary.” …

Vallas, meanwhile, denied his comments against the idea of “handcuffing” police officers and suggested the moderators were confusing him with a previous mayoral candidate, Willie Wilson.

When he rolled out his public safety plan in December, however, Vallas said he would reverse rules that have “literally handcuffed officers,” according to WTTW, contributing to demoralization and making “proactive policing” impossible.

“It is really time to make criminal activity illegal again,” Vallas said. “It seems that people can simply commit crimes with impunity.” He has also made posts on Facebook and Twitter criticizing local leaders and state legislation for what he said was “handcuffing” police. (Alice Yin, Gregory Pratt and A.D. Quig)

Block Club Chicago:

Zorn also asked Vallas during the debate if he stood by past comments about the need to “take the handcuffs off police,” adding that it sounded like a “recipe” for misconduct that could lead to legal issues for the city.

Vallas questioned whether he had ever made that statement, but the moderators cited a Sun-Times article in December where the candidate said, “there are not enough police cars to respond to 911 priority calls. The officers we do have are demoralized and handcuffed.”

“There is no incentive to engage in proactive policing. And the criminals know it, and they’re becoming bolder. There is an utter breakdown of law and order,” Vallas said at the time.

At the debate, Vallas said he supports police reform and would ensure the department complied with the federal consent decree.

“The bottom line is, I’ve talked about it over and over again…Is to restore proactive policing, and proactive policing that is consistent with the consent decree,” he said. “Proactive policing is not taking the handcuffs off.” (Quinn Myers)

Sun-Times:

Over the years, Johnson, a Cook County commissioner, has called defunding police a “goal,” not a political slogan. He has steered clear of the term during his mayoral campaign but has continued to call for cutting the police budget and investing in jobs and affordable housing.

When debate moderator Laura Washington asked him to clarify his stance on defunding the police, Johnson distanced himself from his past comments.

“There are people who want to see the police budget defunded. I said it was a political goal, I never said it was mine,” Johnson said, drawing groans from the hundreds packed into the forum. … The former Chicago Public Schools chief executive was asked by moderator Eric Zorn about statements he’s made in the past about “taking the handcuffs off” of police so they can do their jobs.

Vallas asked Zorn to “please let me know where I said that,” adding that “the bottom line is I have talked about restoring proactive policing that is consistent with the consent decree, and I’ve said that over and over again.” 

During a fact-checking section later in the debate, the moderators told Vallas that the handcuff comments were from a December article in the Sun-Times, drawing laughter from the crowd. Vallas responded by saying, “That was the characterization of what I said. It’s not what I’m articulating, I’m simply talking about proactive policing.”

In the article, Vallas is quoted as saying: “The officers we do have are demoralized and handcuffed. There is no incentive to engage in proactive policing. And the criminals know it, and they’re becoming bolder. There is an utter breakdown of law and order.” (Emmanuel Camarillo)

Last July, Vallas tweeted ,“We cannot handcuff CPD & must allow them to do their jobs!” The Washington Post reported earlier this month, “Vallas has promised to ‘take the handcuffs off’ the notorious Chicago police.”

In fairness to Vallas, the quote appears to have been a paraphrase based on his remarks that invoked the handcuffing metaphor that were then conflated with specific words spoken by former mayoral candidate Willie Wilson. But the obvious implication is that these “handcuffs” ought to be removed, and to claim otherwise feels too cute by half.

In fairness to Johnson, he may never have said the words, “I support defunding the police,” but, again, c’mon. For a guy who tweeted, “I'm always going to keep it 💯 with you, Chicago” last week, this dodge was in the low 20s.

Here is Johnson on the Santita Jackson show:

Barack Obama took it one step further as well and basically said that the effort of the defund police movement lost an audience because of that slogan — I guess is what he’s calling it — which I don’t look at as a slogan, it’s an actual real political goal.

For him to now claim that he was simply describing this goal rather than embracing it strains credulity. He would serve himself far better by explaining what he meant when he embraced this “actual real political goal” and how his thinking may have changed, if at all.

I sounded the alarm bell in June 2020 about cries to “defund the police” almost as soon as those cries were raised:

One of the common functions of “de-” is to signify a thorough reversal:

Defrost, for example. Decapitate. Deactivate. Declassify.

And a common meaning of “defund” is to zero out a budgetary line item, as in the frequent proposals for the federal government to defund Planned Parenthood, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), the National Endowment for the Arts and so on.

In that sense, “defund the police” translates to a demand to stop using tax dollars to pay for the salaries of officers and the other considerable expenses of conventional law enforcement.

Numerous companion signs at rallies reading “abolish the police” reinforce that translation, which was underscored Saturday when the leader of a rally in Minneapolis told Mayor Jacob Frey, “We don’t want no more police!”

When Frey responded, “I do not support the full abolition of the Police Department,” protesters hounded him away with chants of “Go home, Jacob!” and “Shame!”

I’m sure video from that scene is already being cut into dozens of Republican campaign commercials for the fall.

Abolish the police? Completely absurd. As the bloody, destructive weekend of May 29-31 in Chicago vividly illustrated, law enforcement officers, for all their faults, seem to be the only thing standing between civil society and total chaos.

But in numerous media explainers, activists and commentators argue that this translation misinterprets the meaning of “defund.”

Another common function of “de-” is to signify a reduction or movement away from.

Deregulate, for example. Decentralize. Devalue.

“Defund the police” in this sense means reallocating public resources so that men and women with guns on their hips aren’t tasked with dealing with mental health and drug crises, homelessness and other social issues.

“Defund the police” means taking a broader, smarter, less violent approach to how we advance the goal of public safety even as we insist on better training and greater, swifter accountability for misconduct.

“Defund the police” means breaking the code of silence and piercing the veil of lies that protect bad officers. It means not allowing police unions to provide cover for their members with special, generous disciplinary procedures in their contracts.

That all doesn’t fit neatly on a sign.

But “Reimagine the police” does. As does “Rethink the police,” “Reorganize the police” or “Revamp the police.” … (But) the use of a slogan that requires patient and nuanced clarification is a losing strategy. … Chanting words that make your side appear soft-headed and naive is likely to fuel skepticism and even alarm among potential allies. It risks letting this moment slip away.

The imperative is clear: Decommission “defund.”

I don’t know if the debate changed any minds.

It was certainly a home game for Johnson, as the large crowd at the University of Illinois Chicago Forum was stocked with advocates for alternative policing strategies that are more in line with his platform. The disappointing rhetorical slipperiness from both candidates probably balanced out.

There were comparatively few personal or harsh attacks as we tried to keep the candidates focused on what they intended to do rather than the hell their opponent would rain down upon the land.

Johnson is certainly the better extemporaneous speaker and the more charismatic of the two finalists in the runoff. He is also the underdog, according to the most recent poll from non-partisan Victory Research:

Former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas had the support of 44.9% of respondents, Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson was supported by 39.1% and the remaining 16% were … did not know who they planned to vote for. …

When asked if their mind was made up or whether they could still change their minds, 23.2% of Johnson supporters and 14.1%t of Vallas supporters said they could still change their minds, according to the poll, which was conducted from March 6 to March 9 by Victory Research.

The margin of error in the poll was 3.45%

Johnson takes me to task

Here’s a transcript of a moment about an hour and 17 minutes into the program that had people talking:

Zorn: Commissioner Johnson you’ve talked about 60,000 jobs for youths. Many of these youths are not job ready. And, second, where is that money going to come from? Is this an empty promise?

Johnson: Does anybody in here know young people that are ready for a job today? I mean, again, this notion that our people are not ready to experience the economic wealth of the city, again, is a deductive formation that continues to – that is tethered to something that is part of the vestiges of the past. This is the problem with that frame, with all due respect, this is why young people don’t feel valued and seen. Because people keep telling young people that they’re not ready. I’ve been a public school teacher. I’ve looked into the eyes of young people who are struggling and suffering from mental health crises, that their parents are unemployed, that their homes have been dismantled and destroyed, and then you talk about how they’re not ready.

Zorn: Assuming they are ready, where does the money come from to hire them?

Johnson: I don’t want people to ask questions that continue to disparage our people. We’re not going to do that. Whether that was your intention or not, respectfully, so in terms of where the money comes from, I’m going to say what Democrats say: The ultrarich have to pay their fair share in taxes. Even President Biden said that a teacher and a firefighter should not pay the same tax rate as a billionaire. Everybody agrees with that. Over 70% of the city of Chicago voted for a progressive income tax. A fair tax. That is not unreasonable. And that’s why I put the budget plan so that we can debate it now, and if people have an issue with particular dynamics that are presented, well there’s $20 million or $30 million you can’t just say no. Let’s get to a yes. Because lives are on the line. 

We moved on, but if we’d stayed with the question I would have noted that job-readiness training is part of developing life skills and promoting it is shown to strengthen communities and lift people out of poverty. To classify it as an insult is counterproductive.

You can watch the entire debate video here.

Last week’s winning tweet

Social media has shown us why there are directions on shampoo. — @Social_Mime

Here is the direct link to the 64-entry Tweet Madness bracket, explained below.

Martire: Vallas is not blameless when it comes to the city’s pension woes

“We’re in this predicament because of the bad accounting measures of (Paul) Vallas,” said Brandon Johnson during a recent debate with his April 4 runoff election foe. City residents are facing “$2.5 billion in property tax increases because of the budgetary schemes of Paul Vallas. That’s why we are in this structural deficit right now.”

It’s a common refrain of the Johnson campaign — even though Vallas hasn’t been involved in school or city finances for 22 years, it’s all his fault that our pension funds are badly in arrears.

I asked Ralph Martire about this. He’s the executive director of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability and a pension-fund watchdog of long standing.

Martire told me that, yes, in his view, it was irresponsible of Vallas to take pension-payment holidays — to take the money that was earmarked for investment in long-term retirement funds and using it instead for current operating expenses.

“Vallas says that the pension funds looked very healthy in the 1990s,” said Martire. “That they were at or near 100% funding,” meaning that economists projected they had enough or nearly enough to meet future obligations.”

And while that was true, Martire said, it was in part an artifact of the booming markets in that time, and the responsible approach was to continue making regular investments and using current revenues to meet current expenses.

“But he was in effect borrowing from the future and making it look like he was bravely holding the line against tax increases,” Martire said. “That was deceptive. By not making the responsible pension contributions and spending that money elsewhere, he was telling taxpayers they could get a certain level of service for below the actual cost of those services. He put the investment risk onto taxpayers. So he can’t say he was a good fiscal steward,” Martire said. “That’s nonsense.”

On the other hand, there’s plenty of blame for current pension debt to go around. “Illinois politicians are the kings of kicking the can down the road,” said Martire. He said the bipartisan irresponsibility goes back to 1913 and includes many governors, legislators, mayors, bureaucrats and even union leaders who came before and after Vallas, few of whom seemed able to resist spending tomorrow’s money on today’s services.

The currently indignant Brandon Johnson works for the Chicago Teachers Union, but a quarter century ago, CTU was totally on board with Vallas’ “budgetary schemes.” Pam Massarsky, a chief negotiator for CTU in those days, has even cut a commercial for Vallas in which she says:

I was in the room when it happened. Pensions were fully funded and everybody —CTU, (Chicago Public Schools) and the pension board — agreed teachers needed a raise. Paul Vallas got it done. The pension fund was 100% funded, teacher pay increased and test scores rose.

And of course the city and the schools have had more than two decades to make investment changes to compensate for financial decisions made by Vallas and others in the 1990s, but those changes involve confronting taxpayers with some grim realities that are not popular at the ballot box.

Green gives progressives permission to vote for Vallas

Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised that Ja’Mal Green, the impressive young community activist who finished sixth in the recent Chicago mayoral election, announced Wednesday that he was endorsing Paul Vallas, the more conservative of the two candidates in the April 4 runoff.

On Feb. 15, Green launched BrandonIsAFraud.com (now inactive) with a statement reading in part:

While Brandon Johnson continues to present himself as an honest, values driven champion of the working class, his record as a politician — and own statements before entering office –- paint a different picture. … Chicago can’t afford to elect another spineless sellout who cares more about winning the next election than they do about supporting the next generation.

Harsh, yeah, but that’s political rhetoric, and I certainly expected Green at least to refrain from expressing his choice, if not to issue a grudging endorsement of Johnson.

Yet in a flurry of tweets Wednesday, Green pumped up Vallas and continued to give Johnson what for:

Yes, I knew I was going to get the privileged white north side progressives to be mad at me for my endorsement but newsflash, this is a local race and young black kids are dying. We need tangible resources not rhetoric or black unknown faces who won’t commit to a plan.

This isn’t about black or white, republican or democrat, this is about who will commit to a plan and work with everyone. We played identity politics for the last 4 years and got NOTHING. It’s time to bring results while we organize the people to be more engaged.

The Democratic Party is jointly using (Johnson) along w/ (the Chicago Teachers Union) who’s stealing from teachers everyday. I asked him who’s on his team, he couldn’t answer who would help him in the seat. I asked about policies, he won’t commit to any. I made this decision because BJ NOT READY!

Paul is open to listening and learning. He’s been a friend for years and years. Even when we aren’t campaigning, he’s calling to check on me and my kids. He’s a good man and they’re playing the race card because they’re unprepared to battle him on the issues.

Paul & I debate on policing but let’s be realistic, he can’t inflate the budget with the amount of progressive aldermen, and the new council is going to make decisions on policy and superintendent. He knows he would be held accountable and will work with everyone.

I didn’t choose these candidates, I voted for myself. But if you ask who’s the one actually ready and will be better in that seat for 4 years, Paul is that guy. Remove the noise and the 2% of loud people on Twitter and look at the plans and experience. It’s no question! …

Maybe if BJ kept his promise to decrease the police budget he would’ve got my support but the union told him to he doesn’t have permission to do that. Same one that told him to release a disastrous tax plan that would hurt small businesses. Nah. Not enough independence for me.

Some of those who were paying more attention than I was to low-polling candidates did see this coming. As Election Day closed in last month, Stephanie Skora of the “Girl I Guess” progressive voters guide posted:

Ja’Mal’s recent conduct on Twitter (getting into a fight with a teenager, scrapping with CTU, acting like the Valedictorian of Clown College with his infantile swipes at Brandon Johnson) have led me to downgrade him from “Progressive” to “The Pack”. The guy is polling in the absolute basement, he’s clearly cut some sort of deal with a more conservative candidate to attack Brandon, and it’s not really working out as planned. Dear reader, people who follow this election closely enough have thoroughly clocked Ja’Mal as a grifter, a sellout, and a Broke Willie Wilson impersonator. Don’t throw your vote away on this clown.

Look for #BrokeWillieWilson to start trending on Twitter.

Green got a little less than 11,000 votes in winning 2.1% of the vote in the nine-candidate field, but the potential significance here is that his endorsement offers permission to progressive voters who may have voted for Chuy Garcia (nearly 71,000 votes), Mayor Lori Lightfoot (nearly 88,000 votes) or other liberal also-rans to switch to Vallas.

Endorsements that don’t come with money or ground troops are usually meaningless, but this one looks like it could be important.

Yes, Alden is bad. But Gannett is worse

In “The scale of local news destruction in Gannett’s markets is astonishing,” Nieman Labs’ Joshua Benton looks at the nation’s largest newspaper chain and reports:

Gannett’s most recent annual report drives home the fact that no company has done more to shrink local journalism than it has in recent years. Let’s total up the damage — in raw numbers, if not in stories unbroken and facts not uncovered. … Gannett has eliminated 59% of its jobs in four years. … That’s a cut substantially deeper than the rate of newspaper revenue decline.

He then looks at Sunday circulation numbers — both print and digital subscribers and single-copy print sales— for the chain’s largest papers from 2018 to 2022.

“How bad is that?” Benton writes. “ To find out, I assembled a comparison set of non-Gannett papers in other metro areas to see how their declines compared.”

There are plenty of explanations for the gap — but it’s hard not to believe that Gannett’s gutting of their editorial products hasn’t been a driving factor.

And I haven’t yet mentioned the most important Gannett paper: USA Today. In Q3 2018, USA Today reported a total daily circulation of 2,632,392. In its most recent filing, Q3 2022, that was down to 180,381. … When the local paper stops reporting, there’s often no one else to take its place. Everyone gets a little less informed about the world around them. And Gannett has increased local ignorance at a scale no other company can match.

Benton later added an update on the Detroit Free Press numbers in the graphic above:

The paper reported a “total combined average circulation” for 2018 of 933,926, which is the number I’d used before. But to get to that outsized total, the Freep counted not just the regular newspaper but also something called Yes! Your Essential Shopper, a weekly free shopper thrown on porches around the region. (Some consider this genre of publication more litter than newspaper, but advertisers appreciate their larger reach versus a paid daily. Many metro newspapers have similar products — though in my experience most list them as separate publications for circulation-counting purposes, rather than lump them together with the main paper.) But between 2018 and 2022, the Free Press stopped counting Your Essential Shopper as part of its circulation, which increased the scale of the decline between those years. In order to make the comparison more parallel with the others, I’ve removed the shopper’s 716,455 copies from the Free Press total, bringing it down to 217,471. That change reduces the overall Gannett circulation carnage from 77% to 67%

Mary Schmich: A jolt of insight

My former colleague Mary Schmich posts occasional column-like entries on Facebook. Here, reprinted with permission, is her most recent offering:

I’ve been writing for most of my life. And yet I never stop wishing I wrote better. Never stop being curious about the mysterious mix of craft, instinct and innate ability required to do it well.

In that spirit of inquiry, I’m greatly enjoying George Saunders’ book, “A Swim in a Pond in the Rain.” He uses several old Russian short stories, printed in full, as a way to examine how thoughts, sentences and stories are made. I'm not sure how much I'm learning technically, but the book is full of electric jolts of insight. Saunders is an inspiring coach.

Here’s one of my favorite passages, which I put out there for anyone who may need it:

To write a story that works, that moves the reader, is difficult, and most of us can’t do it. Even among those who have done it, it mostly can’t be done. And it can’t be done from a position of total control, of flawless mastery, of simply having an intention and then knowingly executing it. There’s intuition involved, and stretching—trying things that are at the limit of our abilities.

—Mary Schmich

Minced Words

Brandon Pope has some very strong opinions about the story “Chicago man files class action suit against Buffalo Wild Wings, says boneless wings are just nuggets.” toward the end of this week’s episode of “The Mincing Rascals” podcast. Meanwhile, I announce my intention to file a similar suit against purveyors of “chicken fingers.” Host John Williams, Austin Berg and I try to sort Brandon’s feelings and also engage in considerable mayor’s race chat. Subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts. Or bookmark this page. If you’re not a podcast listener, you can now hear an edited version of the show at 8 p.m. most Saturday evenings on WGN-AM 720.

Correction: Last week, I expressed outrage that Brandon had apparently not won the Chicago Reader’s Best of Chicago poll for best beard. I was fixing to put on my shaman costume and storm the offices of the alt weekly crying fraud. But it turns out the results I was looking at were for 2022, not 2023, so we don’t yet know if this election is rigged. The Reader did not respond to several requests to let me know when the results will be published.

Re: Tweets

In Tuesday’s paid-subscriber editions, I present my favorite tweets that rely on visual humor and so can’t be included in the classic Tweet of the Week contest in which the template for the poll does not allow the use of images. This week, I began the Tweet Madness poll for visual tweets and you can find that in the Tuesday edition.

I have also posted the Round of 64 in the Tweet Madness bracket featuring winners and favorites from the past year. You will see 32 sets of tweets, and I’m asking you to choose the one in each pair you like best. Readers will end up choosing the Tweet of the Year. Wagering is now permitted under Illinois law!

Tune of the Week

(This mashup was) originally assembled … by (Canadian folksinger) James Gordon under the title "The Humline Song." Mike Agranoff added one couplet and calls it "60's Mudley,", "House of the Rising Smoke on the Stairway to Free Bird." Performed by Mike Agranoff and Gathering Time at the Minstrel Acoustic Concert Series, July 20, 2012.

Consult the complete Tune of the Week archive!

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