We thought we were done with Vallas but... he's back
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| Look out. Vallas is back in town. |
No sooner had I finished posting about how the Working Families Party and allies were running Paul Vallas out of Bridgeport, than I get the news that he has been selected as Gov. Quinn's running mate here in Illinois. Yes, the master of the disaster in from Philly to New Orleans and from Haiti to Chile, the buster of teacher unions, the school privatization guru himself, is back with a vengeance.
Sun-Times political reporter Fran Spielman and David McKinney call it, "a stunning political move that puzzled many American-American politicians."
What was Quinn thinking? friends ask. Is this a way of sticking it to Rahm? Madigan? To the state's unions? Doesn't he need those unions to defeat the Republicans? Maybe not. Or maybe they will support him anyway. After all, they (including the teachers unions) were probably going to overlook his role as pension buster and turn out their members for him.
Quinn is most likely hoping that Republicrat Vallas will bring him badly-needed votes in cities like Rockford where his ed consulting firm has been successful in bringing in privately run