Feehery: The dangers of writing off big-city elections to progressive candidates

Two elections, one to be the chairman of the Republican National Committee and the other to be the mayor of Chicago, aren’t connected in the minds of most people — but in my opinion, they should be.

I don’t have a dog in either fight, but I make one observation: Our cities suffer because Republicans don’t spend the time or the resources competing for local office in urban America.

The decline and fall of our greatest cities has been one of the most devastating consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Anti-cop policies, school lockdowns, mask mandates, high taxes, anti-small-business regulations, and other “woke” policies chased out many residents who could afford to move, and the result reminds one of the dystopia found in the Batman movies.

My hometown of Chicago is a perfect example of this dynamic.

Lori Lightfoot has been a terrible mayor. She has exemplified all the worst traits of a progressive, big-city mayor, especially in the COVID-19 era.

Crime has skyrocketed during her tenure as mayor, mostly because she has consistently refused to support the police force.

Schools stayed closed during the height of the pandemic, which of course made crime worse. Many schoolchildren rely on the public services, especially food, provided by the schools, and when they stayed closed, kids were forced to fend for themselves. Bad habits developed during the pandemic are hard to break, apparently — Chicago still earns the sobriquet “Chiraq” almost every day.

High taxes and anti-business regulations have conspired to force many businesses to move from Chicago in search of better and safer economic conditions. Boeing and Citadel are just a few of the big corporations that have said adios to the City of Big Shoulders. It used to be called the city that works, but these days, Chicago is more the city that doesn’t show up to work.

It is unlikely Lightfoot, who was once seen as moderate, will lead a renaissance in Chicago. She is too beholden to the teacher’s union, too anti-cop in her approach to public safely, too anti-business in her approach to economic growth and too acerbic in her general approach to governance.

And, according to the latest polls, it doesn’t look she will make the runoff in the nonpartisan election. The two who seem to have the best shot at winning for mayor, Rep. Chuy García (D-Ill.) and former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas, are more likely to continue down the progressive path than offer a conservative alternative that will lead to a revitalized Chicago. No credible Republican has entered the race for mayor, and that’s a shame.

Republicans have written off participating in big-city elections because they believe, with some justification, that they have no chance of winning. But by not coalescing around a credible candidate who has access to enough resources to make a race of it, the GOP not only sacrifices a chance to build inroads with conservative voters of color, it also cedes the debate to the progressive left. And that shift has a profound impact on the national debate and national policies.

When Republicans aren’t in the arena, debating issues like school choice, crime and punishment, wasteful government spending and higher taxes, progressives fill the void by shifting the debate to things like paying for gender reassignment surgery, letting transgender girls into girl’s locker rooms, banning plastic straws and increasing the minimum wage to $20 an hour.

When Republicans aren’t competing for municipal elections, the common-sense hopes and concerns of the vast majority of voters are sacrificed in pursuit of a tiny sliver of progressive votes and their goals.

I hope that whoever becomes the next chairman of the Republican National Committee comes up with a plan to offer conservative Republican alternatives in every big-city election. The American people need to hear from both sides. And no party should be able to get away with unchecked power. Chicagoans are learning that the hard way.

Feehery is a partner at EFB Advocacy and blogs at thefeeherytheory.com. He served as spokesman to former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), as communications director to former House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and as a speechwriter to former House Minority Leader Bob Michel (R-Ill.).