"We must all hang together, or ... we shall all hang separately."

When Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced that he would not run for reelection as Mayor last summer, we quickly entered a very-not-typical race for Mayor of Chicago.

For whatever reason, at least 90% of Mayors of Chicago over the years, have been popular enough to easily win re-election each and every time they ran for re-election. Therefore, the number of challengers has not been large.

But when there is no incumbent, dreams of power and glory and wealth, dance like sugar plums in the minds of Chicago's people who would like to be Mayor, given an actual vacancy.

There are 14 candidates on the ballot this upcoming Tuesday February 16 2109. Five weeks later on Tuesday April 2 2019, if no one person gets more-than-50% of this vote, there will be a 'runoff' election between the two candidates who have the most votes this Tuesday the 26th.

There is one candidate who stands out from the rest, in his background and circle of friends: Bill Daley.

Although many of his ideas for the city are satisfactory and his personal abilities may be adequate ... it is quite glaring that Bill Daley accepted the other day a second $1,000,000 campaign donation from a wealthy individual.

This kind of donation has not happened to the other thirteen candidates.
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There exists now, an informal "club" of people who all played some role in the Obama presidency. This includes President Obama, Mayor Emanuel, and Bill Daley (Chief of Staff in the White House after Mayor Emanuel became Mayor). Although each has had many good ideas of governance, they have all had a tendency to interact much more with each other, very-wealth people, and their advisors, rather than to sufficiently seek the public's input. All have been difficult for the average citizen to reach individually and directly. All have been much wealthier than most of the other candidates they've opposed in elections. Although they may be more in touch with the kind of people who build new projects downtown , as a group they do not appear to make much of an effort to be in touch with the lower-income people who are predominant in many of Chicago's wards ... or even with the politically-active middle-class of Chicago.

For these reasons and a few others, people should consider their vote for Mayor carefully.

Most if not all of the other 13 candidates have some excellent qualities. Most of them have some "baggage" of association with Chicago aldermen who have wound up in jail.

But none of these 13 has that "clubbiness with the rich and powerful" to the degree that Bill Daley has. In my opinion, in these times that is a negative quality and not a positive quality for the next Mayor of Chicago.

How can one pick among these 13 candidates?

The Sun-Times endorsed Lori Lightfoot. The Chicago Maroon endorsed Toni Preckwinkle. The difficulty for the voters, is that there isn't time enough for the voters to fully coalesce around one of these 13 candidates. In fact, if the voters who are choosing among these 13, at least make an effort to band together and vote ... for Toni Preckwinkle ... that would almost certainly guarantee a runoff on April 2 2019 between Daley and Preckwinkle.

If there were another week or two, it probably would be possible for people to realize that they can join forces and elect Toni Preckwinkle immediately, in the initial February election.

In any case, it is my opinion that Toni Preckwinkle will do the best job of getting all of Chicago onto a good path, and will have a participatory Mayoralty. The Obamas and Emanuels and Daleys, have failed to consult the citizens sufficiently for their local agendas, and do not deserve to hold the position of Mayor of Chicago.

Your Patch Mayor for Hyde Park, Sid Colton, endorses Toni Preckwinkle to be the next Mayor of Chicago.