Feb. 14--Chicago mayoral candidate William "Dock" Walls' campaign slogan is "We Can Win," though his history on Election Day would indicate otherwise.
He's finished last in the previous two mayoral elections, just as he did when he ran for city clerk decades ago. A Tribune poll last month had him at 2 percent, trailing his four opponents. Walls, however, has not lost his optimism ahead of the Feb. 24 election.
"I'm going to do much better this time -- we'll win this time," Walls insisted in a recent interview. "There's no reason for us not to win."
Walls' role in both the current and previous campaigns is to try to make sure the issues important to him and his community have a voice. Emanuel and the other challengers, Walls contends, represent the elite 1 percent, while he works in the interests of everyone else. Walls has emphasized helping African-Americans get their fair share of city services and economic development.
He's also livened up several candidate forums by being unafraid to continually interrupt opponents and lob barbs at them. On one occasion, he told Emanuel "You have failed miserably."
At another forum, Walls needled businessman Willie Wilson, cutting off his opponent and asking if he'd changed his stance on an issue.
"Are you mad with somebody?" Wilson asked Walls.
The political itch that Walls continues to scratch goes back to the 1983 mayoral race won by Harold Washington. Walls dropped out of law school to help out with the Washington campaign, and after the victory became Washington's assistant. He left City Hall in 1986, over what he described as "a conflict" with older members of the Washington administration.
Walls got his law degree that same year, but said he never sat for the bar exam. "I never went to law school to practice law, I went for the education," said Walls, 57. He moved on to become a sales trainer in the telephone industry, helped at his late father's construction firm, got into the comedy club business and opened a T-shirt business he still operates today in "semi-retirement."
In 2004, Walls also formed the community group, Committee for a Better Chicago, although he's no longer at its helm.
Walls has not released his tax returns, saying wife Pamela is reluctant to allow that, but records show he does have an interest in a home in Las Vegas and has enough money to loan his current campaign $45,000, accounting for nearly all of his war chest.
Although he isn't on the air yet with an ad, Walls said he expects to buy some radio time before Election Day. The forums, during which he tried to lay out a detailed plan to boost neighborhood economies, lower crime and straighten out city finances, may have provided him with his best platform to reach voters.
"The debates have helped quite a bit, and that's one of the differences between this time and last time," Walls said. "Last time, we didn't get exposure with the debate process. And most importantly, most of the thinking people -- the kind of people who would vote for me -- voted for Rahm Emanuel because (President) Barack Obama said so. That's not gonna work this time."
hdardick@tribune.com
