Are There Any Smart People at the Intersection of Mayor Brandon Johnson and the Media?

In days of old it was the media’s job.

Twenty-five years ago every mayoral candidate had to sit down for a full hour every Sunday morning and be prepared for an in-depth discussion on various matters. Back in the day WTTW – which is now the only outlet conducting long-form interviews – was undoubtedly the easiest interview of the bunch. The guy on NBC liked to talk real fast and was a little bit tougher. Over on CBS Bill Kurtis took his job seriously and is probably the gold standard by which all Chicago journalists should be judged.

However, as they say, things have changed; and not for the better.

Today, in their desire to simply have access to the mayor, Chicago’s media outlets are engaged in an embarrassing circle-jerk of never-ending stupidity whereby each tries to demonstrate their own ignorance to the other. The truly sad part of it is that each side is unaware of what it’s doing.

Instead of an hour dedicated to policy, we get Mayor Johnson waxing nonsensically from behind a podium for 10 minutes yammering on about his feelings.

It’s actually hard to believe this didn’t happen during the campaign. Someone, anyone, early on in the process should have made a very nice video while being polite, but simply stating the facts, that Brandon Johnson is an intellectual lightweight who always sounds like someone half drunk at midnight trying to talk their way out of a ticket.

It shouldn’t be difficult. Simply speak the truth. One doesn’t have to be mean about it. There is nothing wrong with telling Brandon Johnson that he appears to be a nice man who loves his wife and his kids, goes to church, and generally means well and what have you. It’s also fair to say that he’s probably a decent man and a productive member of society, Unfortunately, we’re talking about being the mayor of the third largest city in America. The qualifications are more than being a productive member of society and a good person.

We’re not looking for a genius. What Chicago really needs is a leader. A leader is someone who can very simply explain, “This is what I’m going to do. This is why it is going to work. And this is how we will measure success.”

Unfortunately Mayor Johnson is simply unable to consistently articulate his own policy, its rationale, or its measure of success.

To be clear, this is not a criticism of his race. There are several other more qualified candidates for mayor who also happened to be black. Toni Preckwinkle is a proven executive running the Cook County Board. Longtime alderman and former felon Walter Burnett has proven himself quite adapt at wielding the levers of power in City Hall. Doctor Willie Wilson, who did run for mayor, runs a successful multi-million dollar company.

This is not to say that any of people would make a suitable mayor, only that each is infinitely more qualified than Brandon Johnson.

In days of old local media would be having a field day. No talking head would ever appear on camera without saying things like, “Mayor Johnson was unable to describe his policy today…” Or, “Today, Mayor Johnson refused to discuss why so many of Chicago’s children can’t read or do math at grade level.”

It’s easy to believe local media is simply full of sycophants. And while that is certainly part of it, it’s also worth noting that today most journalists are dumber than politicians. They just don’t know what questions to ask.

Journalism can be confrontational without being adversarial. Perhaps it’s time for the Chicago Tribune editorial board to invite the good mayor in for a sit-down. They can call it the “State of the City” or something like that as we approach the halfway point of the mayor’s term.

Although no one sees that happening, here are some questions a young enterprising journalist should ask the mayor if they could ever get him to sit down. They could actually even give the mayor the questions in advance so he could study like a test. All the questions follow the same, policy > nexus > metric, format:

The Scope and Role of Government

• With the recent election of Trump, how do you see the different roles of municipal, county, state, and federal governments?
• What policy of your administration do you believe best represents Chicago fulfilling its role as a municipality?
• How will this policy make life better for Chicago’s residents?
• How will your administration measure the success or failure of this policy?

Finance & Macroeconomics

• Policies:
  • Can the city go on raising taxes forever or at some point will have to balance the budget, pay down debt, and get current with its pension obligations?
  • Would you ever consider putting the city into bankruptcy?
  • Do you believe the city has an obligation to fully fund the pensions of the police officers, firefighters, teachers, and other city workers?
  • For the last decade or so the city has been hemorrhaging people, how long can they continue before it becomes a problem?
  • Do you believe the city may reach a point where it would have to raise taxes so prohibitively that people may leave and cause what some call a “death spiral”?
• Describe how your policies will make living more cost-effective in Chicago.
• How will your administration measure the success or failure of these policies?

Race Relations

• We’ve noticed that you often talk about what you wish to do for black people, is there anything the city should be doing for non-black people?
• What policy of your administration best deals with the above question?
• How will your administration measure the success or failure of this policy?

Education

• Policies:
  • If CPS was a business, what is the product?
  • How does the product of CPS compare to other school districts in large cities?
  • What’s the high school graduation rate for CPS? | What should be done with students who don’t graduate?
  • What’s the metric by which CPS teachers should be measured?
  • Are there any bad teachers in CPS? | What should we do with them?
  • CPS is now spending over $20,000 per student per year, is that an acceptable number?
  • Why is it that CPS’s spending has not gone down with declining enrollment?
• Describe how these policies will make education better for the average child in Chicago.
• How will your administration measure the success or failure of these policies?

Public Safety

• Policies:
  • Should CPD simply follow the law and arrest or ticket every individual who was observed committing a crime regardless of the situation or that persons race, gender, or stature?
  • If either CPD or the Cook County State’s Attorney wish to apply discretion in any matter how should that be judged? | What are the factors used when applying law enforcement or prosecutorial discretion?
  • Now that we have seen some of the effects of cashless bail, is it working or not working?
  • What would you say is the reasonable amount of crime that law-abiding citizens should have to tolerate in the city?
  • What data do you get in reports from CPD and OEMC by which you measure CPD’s performance? | Are you happy with the reports you get? | How has the data changed since you have been in office?
  • What should citizens expect as a reasonable response time from CPD when they call 911?
  • In the federal system, felons in possession of a firearm receive a mandatory 5-year sentence. Have you ever spoken with anyone in the CCSAO about making these referrals to the US attorney? | Would you support the CCSAO making these referrals?
  • Is CPD a little top-heavy? | Is there some reason each district requires more than a single commander, 3-4 captains, 6-8 lieutenants, 14-16 sergeants? | If the superintendent cannot directly manage 50 people he wouldn’t be qualified to manage a McDonald’s. What’s going on over there?
• Describe how these policies will make life safer for the average citizen in Chicago.
• How will your administration measure the success or failure of these policies?

Housing & Real Estate

• Policies:
  • Does Chicago have enough housing?
  • Does Chicago need more high-end, market rate, or more affordable rate housing? | Why?
  • Is there any neighborhood where you would or would not allow only market rate housing to be built? | Similarly, is there any neighborhood where you would or would not allow only affordable housing to be built?
  • Does your office have a report on how much additional tax revenue would be generated if any given amount of new housing was completed? | No. Why not? | Yes. What does it say?
  • Why does Chicago have so much vacant commercial real estate? | What, if anything, should be done about it? | Would you support the city and/or county having a tax holiday for some business that wants to open up in vacant commercial real estate? | By what criteria would the businesses be selected?
• Describe how these policies will make housing more comfortable for the average citizen in Chicago.
• How will your administration measure the success or failure of these policies?

Migration & Social Services

• Policies:
  • How many migrants, illegal immigrants, are currently residing in Chicago?
  • How many migrants can Chicago accept in any given year? | How was that number determined? | Is any number too many; can Chicago accept 1,000,000 per year?
  • In your term, or perhaps in just the last fiscal year, what has been the cost of illegal immigration to Chicago?
  • Does that number include the added expense of migrant children enrolled in CPS?
  • How many children of illegal migrant’s are currently enrolled in CPS?
  • Does your office have a report describing spending on migrants? | Does this report break it down to dollars per migrant?
• Describe how these policies will make life better for the average citizen in Chicago.
• How will your administration measure the success or failure of these policies?

Other Stuff

• Policies:
  • How much money is currently sitting in the TIFF funds? | How is it invested? | What should be done with it?
  • Do you support the creation of additional TIFF districts in the city?
  • Does the mayor’s office have enough power – or not enough power – relative to the City Council? | Is there anything within your power which you believe should require Council approval? | Is there anything that requires Council approval that you believe you should be able to do?
  • Now that Trump has won, what – if anything – is your office doing to prevent a repeat of the violence of 2016 & particularly 2020? | If violence does erupt, what is your intention in regards to dealing with it? | Will it be permitted?
  • By what standards/metrics should the citizens measure your performance as mayor?
• Describe how these policies will make life better for the average citizen in Chicago.
• How will your administration measure the success or failure of these policies?

These questions are not mean, inappropriate or gotcha. These are ordinary questions that every journalist working the city desk should have the answers to at their fingertips but they, and we, don’t. As a result, we don’t know what were voting for, how much it’s going to cost, or how it impacts our families.

In Chicago, we are governed by idiots in no small part because the people working in journalism today either don’t want or are too dumb to get answers to the real questions affecting our lives.