Nov. 19--Mayor Rahm Emanuel launched his re-election bid with a new campaign website Tuesday and will start airing his first TV ad Wednesday, all before either of his two major challengers have even filed paperwork to get on the Feb. 24 ballot.
The moves reflect one strategy the mayor is using as he tries to convince Chicagoans he deserves a second term: Put a spotlight on concrete, citywide accomplishments while staying away from the controversial school closings, teachers strike and violent crime that have dogged him during much of his first term.
Emanuel's first TV spot features a Pilsen community activist crediting Emanuel with a specific accomplishment: closing a pair of Southwest Side coal plants. Emanuel does not speak in the ad.
The campaign website, chicagotogether.org, has a similar focus. The top half of the home page doesn't feature the typical stock photos of a politician, but a map of Chicago that seeks to highlight Emanuel's specific accomplishments in individual neighborhoods.
The mayor's campaign rebranded its website from "Chicago for Rahm" to "Chicago Together," Emanuel's re-election slogan. In addition to touting what the campaign portrays as the mayor's various policy accomplishments, the website also asks supporters to share their "neighborhood story."
"We want the new site to be a place that celebrates Chicago and all of the amazing people who make it great," campaign manager Michael Ruemmler writes on the site. "The home page features a map with stories and success from every neighborhood in the city, and a place for you to add your own."
The map features red dots showing what the campaign lists as improvements in each neighborhood. Zoomed down to street level, the map highlights everything from Divvy bike rental stations and elevated train line improvements to spending on programs or improvements at specific libraries and schools.
The map, however, doesn't note other Chicago metrics, such as the location of Emanuel's hundreds of new speed cameras that tag city drivers with fines of up to $100 or the nearly 50 public schools closed on the mayor's watch.
Emanuel's new TV ad is to start airing Wednesday, two days after the mayor's campaign filed petition signatures to get on the ballot. Top challengers Ald. Bob Fioretti, 2nd, and Cook County Commissioner Jesus "Chuy" Garcia have yet to file their paperwork. While Emanuel is sitting on nearly $9 million in campaign cash, neither Fioretti nor Garcia has raised enough to make significant television buys in the expensive Chicago market.
The mayor's ad buy comes just two weeks after Gov. Pat Quinn and challenger Bruce Rauner finished airing tens of millions of dollars in TV attack ads during their heated campaign for governor. Perhaps in a nod to voter fatigue with the ad onslaught, Emanuel's first ad focuses on Pilsen activist Kim Wasserman.
Wasserman tells of how she fought for years to close two Southwest Side coal plants and how her fight fell on deaf ears until Emanuel came along.
"I think Rahm comes at a lot of these issues being able to have the tough conversations," she says, as the ad shows video of Emanuel sitting on a park bench with Wasserman and her young son. "He said, 'If the right thing to do is to shut them down, then that is what I will do.' And that's exactly what he did. That's the kind of leadership that our communities need."
What the ad didn't note: The two power plants were being run by a company experiencing financial woes, and the plants already were under fire from Chicago aldermen.
Midwest Generation announced in March 2012 that it would shutter the Fisk coal plant in Pilsen and the Crawford plant in Little Village. In September 2012, the Tribune reported that "increased competition from natural gas plants has driven electricity prices lower and cut sharply into the company's bottom line."
The company declared bankruptcy in December 2012, nine months after it closed the coal plants.
bruthhart@tribpub.com
Twitter @BillRuthhart
