CTU President Karen Lewis talks to reporters in March. File Photo. | Rich Hein/Sun-Times
Karen Lewis inches closer to run — crafting exploratory committee
TUE, 07/15/2014 - 12:51AM
Karen Lewis’ potential bid for Chicago Mayor has moved beyond just a thought — it’s an “organic,” growing movement, the fiery Chicago Teachers Union president said.
Lewis revealed on Monday she already has an unofficial exploratory committee in the works, a chairperson has been named and her camp is working to have a representative in each of the city’s 77 neighborhoods.
Since an Early & Often poll released Sunday put Lewis at a 9-percentage-point advantage over Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Lewis’ phone has been ringing non-stop, she said.
“They’ve been coming from all over the country,” Lewis said in an interview Monday. “Facebook is blowing up. Twitter is blowing up.”
Lewis lashed out at Emanuel camp’s initial response to the poll published by the Sun-Times political portal. An Emanuel political spokesman called the poll numbers “laughable.”
“There are a variety of ways to look at these problems, but laughable isn’t one of them,” said Lewis, the mayor’s top critic during the closing of 50 schools. “That is how people feel — that they’ve been laughed at and ignored.”
Lewis said she’s still not made a final decision on whether to enter the contest.
But she is already thinking about strategy. That involves drilling down to the community level on resident concerns and having a representative for each of the city’s 77 official community areas.
Lewis described an ongoing effort to reach out to communities.
“It’s an organic, grass-roots movement that doesn’t have a top down organization. I think that’s unusual to so many people,” Lewis said.Karen Lewis inches closer to run — crafting exploratory committee | Early & Often:
