Emanuel and Garcia face different personality challenges
Mayor Rahm Emanuel has long nurtured a national reputation as a short-fused political savant, but with his re-election unexpectedly on the bubble, he finds himself trying to convince voters those defining personality traits are a positive.
Jesus "Chuy" Garcia, the Cook County commissioner hoping to unseat Emanuel in an April 7 runoff, faces the opposite problem. He is possessed of an earnest, nice-guy demeanor but now has to demonstrate to a wide pool of voters he has the vision and backbone to lead a city facing deep and difficult troubles.
And both rivals face a tight deadline to pull off those sales jobs.
In an era when political campaigns often drag on for months or years, the race for Chicago's next mayor has been compressed into a six-week sprint bound to test the savvy and resources of Emanuel and Garcia. They were the top vote-getters among five candidates in an initial round of balloting Tuesday that produced no outright winner.
As the campaign resets, the edge for Garcia lies in momentum. For Emanuel, it's money.
Emanuel underperformed in Tuesday's vote despite an enormous fundraising advantage that allowed him to dominate the airwaves with his message. That advantage is almost sure to continue into the runoff, affording Emanuel an effective mechanism to try to define the lesser-known Garcia in the minds of voters before Garcia can define himself.
At the same time, by simply surviving to fight another day, Garcia's up-to-now low-budget campaign is almost sure to gain energy, money and a fresh look from voters. "I've largely represented districts on the Southwest Side, so my name recognition isn't where a mayoral contender needs to have it," Garcia acknowledged Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Chuy Garcia face different personality challenges - Chicago Tribune: