Todd Stroger just landed a new talk radio gig, and the former Cook County Board president is looking forward to chatting with a regular monthly guest:
Toni Preckwinkle.
Stroger says that his former bitter rival has agreed to sit down with him to talk politics on WVON.
Stroger called their differences “old time stuff now.”
Long before Preckwinkle lost her mayoral bid, she beat Stroger in the 2010 Democratic primary. And she continued to vilify him long afterward.
“It is a mixed blessing succeeding somebody who is inept,” Preckwinkle told college students two years later. “On one hand, the bar is low, and on the other hand, things are a mess.”
So now that all that is behind them, does Stroger socialize with the woman who ousted him from county government?
“Do we throw a Frisbee around? No, we’re not that close, but I think we have a mutual respect for each other,” Stroger said.
Stroger shared his thoughts about Preckwinkle, Lori Lightfoot’s City Council battles and politics in general as he joins WVON as co-host on the Mornings with Maze Jackson.
Stroger is no stranger to WVON or Maze Jackson’s show. He’s been a guest host for about six months on the program, he says, and was asked to become a permanent co-host where he’ll continue to provide an insider’s perspective on politics while also talking about issues in the city, especially those afflicting the city’s African American residents.
“We talk a lot of politics on the show, and what Maze brings is he has worked as a lobbyist and worked on campaigns,” Stroger said. “I bring just the opposite — being in the political space and talking to people in the political space and people who want to be re-elected is a totally different animal.”
And he also says he’ll also provide a different perspective on Lightfoot’s transition and transition troubles.
“I don’t look at [the battle over City Council reorganization] as being her problem. There’s too much of an emphasis put on the mayor — the mayor is such a powerful being that everything done is done because the mayor says so, and the mayor is so powerful and has enough allies to withstand just about anything,” Stroger said.
“There’s a counter voice needed to say ‘what about this?’ and I think that’s going to be the City Council. I think they can play that role, and they don’t need to be obstructionist about it, but they need to be part of what’s going on.”
Stroger is the latest Chicago politician to turn to a career on the airwaves.
Others include Cliff Kelley, who was alderman of the 20th Ward before being indicted on federal grand jury charges relating to City Hall bill collection contracts, and former Ald. Edward Vrdolyak, whose battles with Mayor Harold Washington led the Wall Street Journal to dub Chicago “Beirut on the Lake.”
.jpg?w=600)
