On Tuesday, Chicago will host a mayoral race in which there are nine — count ’em — nine! candidates vying to run the city. One of those is incumbent mayor Lori Lightfoot, who’s floundering badly in the race.

But because there is a veritable clown car of candidates, it’s not likely that any one of them will earn 50%, thereby forcing a run off between the top two in April.

Yet Lightfoot remains undaunted, blaming Covid for Chicago’s malaise (of course!), and saying that Chicagoans need to “forge ahead” with her at the helm.

We have been through hell and back in the last four years. No one could have anticipated that we were going to go through a once-in-a-lifetime global pandemic. Am I completely understanding that people are feeling a sense of disquiet and concern? I absolutely get it. How could we not? But we need to keep forging ahead together.

The Biggest Issue Facing Chicago

There’s one overriding issue facing Windy City voters. Make that four issues, wrote former Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass:

If you know anything about Chicago, you know there are four critically important issues:

Crime, crime, crime, and crime.

In case you’re wondering just how bad it is in the city, consider these stats from CWBChicago, which compiled police data:

• Major crime has risen a whopping 104% over the past two years (way to go, Lori!);
• Car theft is up 151% so far this year;
• Sexual assaults and robberies are up 23% each;
• Theft is up 33%;
• Ironically, murder is down. But it’s still 58% higher than before Lori Lightfoot was elected mayor in 2019.

Chicago has become so notorious for crime that internet wags create memes like this:

As former Chicago journalist Steve Huntley wrote:

Crime poses an existential threat to the city of Chicago. 

And now that Huntley is retired, guess where he lives: Texas.

The White Guy Beating Lori Lightfoot

He’s far from the magic 50% threshold, but candidate Paul Vallas is clobbering Lori Lightfoot in the polls.

Vallas, the former CEO for the Chicago Public Schools, is no stranger to the city’s politics. He’s run before for mayor as well as Illinois governor, and has lost. But this time his more conservative message (for a self-described progressive Democrat, that is) is resonating with Chicago residents fed up with crime.

As Steve Huntley wrote:

He may be something that the hard left just can’t understand — a progressive who believes that safe streets and neighborhoods are a fundamental requirement to advance liberal goals. 

So because of his message, the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police just endorsed Paul Vallas. It also helps his law-and-order credibility that his two sons are first responders: one a firefighter, the other a cop. Plus his wife Sharon is a former police officer.

But whom is the Lightfoot camp focusing on? Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Last week DeSantis appeared at a “Back the Blue” event in the Chicago suburb of Elmhurst. Because the FOP promoted the DeSantis event, Lori Lightfoot accused Vallas of being joined at the hip with Ron DeSantis. “Vallas has wrapped his arms around the far-right fringe of the Republican Party,” she impugned.

Vallas responded stupidly by denouncing the Florida governor and his promotion of traditional American values. Such are the deep-blue politics of Chicago.

Then there are the infamous Vallas tweets. Or rather, the “liking” of tweets upon which the Lightfoot camp pounced.

Apparently Paul Vallas liked tweets that referred to the lesbian Lori Lightfoot as “Larry.” He also liked tweets that called her a “gnome” and that accused her of playing identity politics.

Once again, Vallas clumsily responded, claiming that … wait for it … someone “hacked” his account. Or that staffers checked off the “likes” for these tweets, some of which date back to 2021. Suuure.

But digging into old social media shows how desperate Lori Lightfoot has become in her quest to hold onto her office.

Meanwhile, People are Leaving Chicago

The people who can leave, that is. The residents who are too poor to find their way into Indiana or Wisconsin or elsewhere are stuck in the dying city. Many of them are black or Hispanic residents who have to put up with gangs and disastrous public schools.

A writer at JohnKassNews, who calls himself “Steve the Pilot,” is a native Chicagoan. Not only that, but he’s the 4th generation of his family to live there. He quips:

1. Everyone in my family is here, either above or below ground.
2. I’ve been everywhere but nowhere (I’m a pilot and I lived 2 blocks from where I was born).

But Steve the Pilot has left Chicago behind — the city he loved, the city he thought he’d never leave. Because, of course, crime:

They started burning Michigan Avenue and now there’s a lot of boarded up storefronts and no one after dark. Carjackings, murders, robberies, shoplifting and mayhem in broad daylight, even in good neighborhoods. My family didn’t want to come into the city to visit us for fear of robbery or worse! The engine is dying and I don’t see it running smooth, if ever, for a very long time. They talk about investing in the neighborhoods, but without a well running engine at the core, the car doesn’t go. It’s pretty simple.

And Steve the Pilot has moved to … Florida. The land of Ron DeSantis, who embodies the “far-right fringe of the Republican party,” as Lori Lightfoot said. And now in DeSantis Land, Steve wrote of his joy of being able to visit an Apple Store without his “head on a swivel worried about getting mugged.”

Steve the Pilot has parting words of wisdom for Chicago voters come Tuesday: Vote like your life depends on it, because it does.

Welcome, Instapundit readers! 

Featured image: Dimitry B./flickr/CC BY 2.0.