Toni Preckwinkle and Brendan Reilly are at each others\u2019 throats like a pair of battlin\u2019 weasels in the primary for Cook County Board president.<\/p>\n
Reilly, the alder of the downtown 42nd Ward, was out with the first negative commercial, asking, \u201cRemember when Toni Preckwinkle promised us lower taxes?\u201d A big red \u201cLIE\u201d filled the screen. \u201cShe promised not to raise the sales tax.\u201d Another big red \u201cLIE.\u201d \u201cAnd remember Toni\u2019s soda tax?\u201d The ad ended by accusing Preckwinkle of raising taxes throughout her 34 years in local politics, and asked voters to reject \u201cToni\u2019s lies.\u201d<\/p>\n
Preckwinkle responded by charging that Reilly is, in the world of Cook County politics, the only thing worse than a liar: a Trump enabler. \u201cReilly wanted Chicago authorities to help ICE,\u201d a narrator intoned, using that doom-filled voice that narrators always use in negative ads. \u201cHe pushed a bill to remove protection from immigrants,\u201d referring to Reilly\u2019s vote to (unsuccessfully) overturn Chicago\u2019s Welcoming City ordinance. Then the ad accused Reilly of voting to allow Trump to \u201cdeface\u201d the city\u2019s skyline by stamping his name on the Trump International Hotel & Tower, which rises in his ward.<\/p>\n
The race for County Board President has become so bitter because it\u2019s a proxy for the divisions in contemporary Chicago Democratic politics. Reilly, who represents the headquarters of most big local corporations on the City Council, stands for the business wing of the party. Preckwinkle, who is a product of the Kenwood\/Hyde Park independent movement, stands for its progressive wing. We\u2019ve already seen those divisions play out on the City Council. A group of alders, including Reilly, a leading member of the so-called Common Sense Caucus, voted to pass a budget that didn\u2019t include Mayor Brandon Johnson\u2019s pet corporate head tax, which would have been anathema in Reilly\u2019s ward. Reilly endorsed pro-business Paul Vallas in the 2023 mayoral election.<\/p>\n
Preckwinkle was one of Johnson\u2019s earliest supporters. She mentored him during his single term on the county board, endorsed him when he ran for mayor, and \u2014 during the first year and a half of his mayoralty \u2014 engaged with him in biweekly phone calls to discuss city and county business. Although neither candidate has mentioned Johnson by name, and Johnson hasn\u2019t endorsed Preckwinkle, the race can be seen as a test of the popularity of his brand of left-wing politics.<\/p>\n
To give you an idea of where Reilly stands, take a look at his campaign team. His campaign manager is Greg Goldner of Resolute Public Affairs, who has a long history of fighting progressives within the Democratic Party. Goldner\u2019s last job before working for Reilly was as campaign manager for Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an independent candidate to the right of eventual winner Zohran Mamdani in last year\u2019s New York City mayoral race. That wasn\u2019t Goldner\u2019s first tilt against socialism. Goldner\u2019s shop led the campaign that defeated a ballot initiative for Johnson\u2019s Mansion Tax, which would have increased real estate transfer fees on properties that sell for more than $1 million.<\/p>\n