Major Boost for Stroger as Davis Departs

US Rep Danny Davis' dalliance with running for Cook County Board President has turned into a significant boost for the campaign of Todd Stroger. Davis is announcing he will seek reelection for US Rep, and depart the Cook County Board President race. This leaves his constituency to drift into another camp, most likely that of Todd Stroger.

Davis constituency has a stronger affinity with Stroger than any of the other candidates for the Democratic nomination. Davis had been making noises about undermining the independent medical board established last year. The CCHHS board is responsible for reforming Cook County medical hiring. Historically, the county health system was used as a recruiting tool for political "volunteers," who were hired as superfluous janitors or food service workers in exchange for political work on political campaigns of the Stroger Family and their associates.

Racial affinity will be a huge factor, if not the defining factor, in the outcome of this contest. Other than Stroger, the remaining candidates for the Democratic nomination are Dorothy Brown, Toni Preckwinkle, and Terrence O'Brien. Dorothy Brown was not considered a serious contender, given her flaccid campaign to unseat Mayor Daley in 2007. The discovery that many of Brown's petition signatures were gathered in a felony fraud scheme to use state Earnfare employees as collectors essentially guarantees an expensive and likely successful petition challenge. Toni Preckwinkle, though a black woman, has social class issues that gain her many white progressive votes, but alienate her from the constituency naturally attracted to Stroger or Davis. Terrence O'Brien is the only white candidate in the contest, which will guarantee him a large proportion of the white vote, but a Cook County election that is cast as white versus black will most likely result in a larger turnout of blacks than whites.

Bottom line, with Stroger in and Davis out, most of Davis' people will switch to Stroger.

In Rogers Park, our 49th Ward Democratic Committeeman David Fagus was a decades-long Stroger supporter, and has thus far been supporting Danny Davis. Now that Stroger is out, will Fagus go back to Stroger? Time will tell.