Crowd at NAACP forum cheers Garcia, jeers Emanuel

[Stellar]

Chicago’s mayoral runoff race moved on Sunday to the West Side, where a crowd at an NAACP forum turned on Mayor Rahm Emanuel before warmly embracing his challenger, Jesus “Chuy” Garcia.

The Chicago Westside NAACP Branch gave Emanuel and Garcia an opportunity to make their cases to voters at Purcell Hall in Garfield Park. The candidates spent roughly an hour each answering questions from a two-person panel.

Emanuel went first, fielding questions about education, street violence, West Side representation on city boards and community participation in city government. But the crowd grew restless as he neared his closing statement and had used examples from other parts of the city to explain his policies.

One woman in the audience interrupted Emanuel, imploring him to talk “about the West Side. We haven’t heard about Austin, Lawndale,” she said to applause....

http://chicago.suntimes.com/chicago-politics/7/71/479773/crowd-naacp-forum-cheers-garcia-jeers-emanuel

All of his money can't get this crowd to like Emanuel, and he needs them....poor thing. Obama showed up to support him and I guess that was all Rahm thought he needed to impress the African-American community in Chicago. Wrong! More at the link.

[merrily]

1. Go, Garcia!

[daleanime]

2. +1

[Peregrine Took]

3. Send moneybags back to the north shore! N/t

[zentrum]

4. Hope the attendees are registered

AND VOTE!

[Scuba]

5. Obama still supports this bag of shit? Guess I shouldn't be surprised.

[Stellar]

6. Obama was in town just before the election in February...

claiming to dedicate historic Pullman neighborhood national monument. Of course Rahm was hanging all over him and grinning. Obama hasn't been back since. Thank goodness.

http://abc7chicago.com/politics/obama-visits-chicago-for-pullman-designation/524701/

But anyway, this morning new polls came out saying that Rahm is winning in the polls.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/31/politics/rahm-emanuel-chicago-mayoral-race-runoff-debate-preview/index.html

[frazzled]

7. And yet polls as of today

Have the black vote unchanged for Emanuel, at 53%. Black support for Garcia is slightly down from 31% to 28%.

For those of you who don't live in Chicago (which I can guess is most everyone), you should understand the demographics of this city: it's 1/3 white, 1/3 black, 1/3 hispanic. If Garcia is getting only 28% of the African American vote right now, and 52% of the Latino vote (36% of Latinos are supporting Emanuel), it doesn't seem likely he can win.

Of course, a week is a long time in politics. But right now the polls are at 58% to 30% (other polls are showing a somewhat similar spread). That's a hell of a big gap to overcome.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-chicago-mayors-race-met-0331-20150330-story.html#page=1

[Stellar]

8. Tru dat.

I'm hoping early voting will help Chuy out. Especially with the union helping. But then, Rahm knows some of the tricks of the trade too, thanks to Obama.

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2015/03/24/early-voting-off-to-strong-start-for-mayoral-runoff-election/