Would
No.
Rahm would have lost the election. Why? Because he would have lost
Without the black vote,
Black political figures would have been uneasy standing with Rahm. They would have run away. They couldn't stand with him.
Not if that video came out during the election campaign, the video showing white cop
Emanuel could have even sat in President
And that still wouldn't have saved him.
So Emanuel buried the video. And black politicians and clergy got busy getting out the vote for Rahm. He won the
If the video had been out, if
But just to make sure of my theory, I called the one guy who'd know:
"Yes," Garcia told me over the phone. "That video would definitely have changed the political environment.
"The rug would have been pulled out from under many political leaders' feet. Things would have been different," he said.
"And now, with the video out and people seeing it, everywhere I go people ask me about it. Everywhere I go people tell me it would have been a game changer. If people had seen it, they would have said, this city is so corrupt, it's time for a change."
But they didn't see it, until it was too late.
"There's just some basic
Which is why Rahm didn't want it to be seen, why he had to do everything to keep it under wraps. And he did do everything to keep it under wraps, until the other day.
"And that's the
Yes it is.
You can see the truth of it by watching the other politicians scrambling for cover in the wake of the Laquan McDonald video release.
They don't like questions about how they helped Rahm win. That puts the jacket on them. And they don't want to wear the jacket.
So they're stitching one up for
They want Alvarez to wear the jacket for it all.
Rahm seems to be throwing her under his bus, but he doesn't want his fingerprints on her. So his ally,
Axelrod is a Rahm pal, but for years he was also the mouthpiece for former Mayor
"Why did it take a year to indict a CPD officer who shot a kid 16 times?" Axelrod tweeted Tuesday night. "Would it have happened today if judge hadn't ordered video release?"
That puts it on Alvarez. Does she deserve it?
I don't think so. To me, she's not the issue.
The video threatened
Funny how things work out.
Axelrod's tweet legitimizes a self-preservation tactic
On Wednesday, I headed over to my old haunts at
Not their jobs. And not Rahm's. Instead, they saved their outrage for police Superintendent
But even in cloudy waters you might still see a slippery bullhead, if you can spot the fins or the chin whiskers. And so I reached down, got my hand wet and asked:
Would Emanuel have won the African-American vote if that video had been seen before the election?
Most just looked at me as if I were a space alien saying "I come in peace" in some frightening alien tongue of clicks and whistles that they couldn't understand.
Later, I cornered one of the aldermen and asked again.
"No," said the alderman, meaning no, Rahm would not have won the election. "But you already knew that. Why are you asking us?"
Comment by clicking here.
John Kass is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune who also hosts a radio show on WLS-AM.