Paul Vallas and the sound of dollars being flushed down the toilet.
The Chicago Tribune has a long history of editorial stupidity going all the way back to the days before Robert McCormick bought it and made it a mouthpiece for American isolationism and against FDR’s New Deal.
But last week’s Tribune editorial was a new kind of stupid.
Titled Here’s how McDonald’s is improving its burgers and buns. There’s a lesson for Brandon Johnson, the editorial board described how McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski was radically retooling McDonald’s, which is headquartered in Chicago’s west Loop.
The retooling includes massive layoffs at the corporate level and redesigning its hamburger.
The new buns will be softer and more pillowy. The grill will be cranked up for a better sear on the patty, and onions previously served uncooked will be added to the patties before they go on the griddle, adding a sweeter, caramelized flavor. The American cheese will be noticeably hotter and “meltier,” the chain announced.
I guess in the corporate world meltier American cheese is considered out of the box thinking.
But then the Tribune made the leap and suggested newly elected progressive Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson follow the example that Kempczinski set.
This is what strong leaders do. They make tough decisions, and they’re willing to experiment with new ways of doing business — as Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson will need to do if he plans to solve the problems Kempczinski cited.
I may need to remind readers that the Chicago Tribune endorsed Paul Vallas for Chicago Mayor against Brandon Johnson.
According to the Tribune editorial board, Vallas would provide the kind of business oriented leadership that our city needs.
A McDonald’s kind of vision.
The mayoral equivalent of softer buns and meltier American cheese.
Brandon Johnson, on the other hand is a progressive leader who was a former middle school teacher and unionist.
For the Tribune that was enough to disqualify Johnson as someone to sit on the fifth floor of City Hall.
As the candidate representing Chicago business, Vallas raised nearly $20 million. It was twice what Johnson raised.
In case Vallas’ failed career being fired from every school district he has ever run wasn’t illustration enough, a story in the Chicago Sun-Times suggests that Vallas was never the management expert he tried to present himself as.
It seems Vallas is now trying to recover $700,000 he paid to a guy who convinced Vallas that he could turn out the vote in the Black community.
That Vallas vote in the Black community never happened.
It shows how little oversight his campaign had over the $18 million avalanche of contributions that came pouring in from the business community after his first-place finish on Feb. 28, Bowen said.
“If he set $700,000 on fire with a very atypical campaign vendor to try to win votes in the Black community like that, that is possibly the stupidest thing anyone in Chicago politics has ever done,” said Bowen, who served as a senior adviser to Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s campaign and as political director for former Mayor Rahm Emanuel in 2012.
Bowen said he’s sure former Gov. Bruce Rauner and vanquished Republican gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey “also wasted incredible amounts of money on services like that” in their failed attempts to make inroads into the African-American community.
But in a Chicago mayoral race, it’s “unheard of” to spend that much money so unwisely, Bowen said. After running Lightfoot’s 2019 runoff campaign, Bowen said he “understands the stress” of keeping close tabs on campaign spending when contributions come pouring in.
But if you have “basic competency at the fundraising and campaign management level,” the money will be spent, only on entities “with reputations for delivering,” he said.
“I am gobsmacked by that $700,000 total. That is ludicrous. … It speaks to incompetence more than anything else by Paul. He’s the candidate, and the people he trusted to run his campaign staff deserves to be held accountable. But the ultimate guy calling the shots is the one whose name is on the ballot,” Bowen said.
It is a common theme coming from those like the Tribune editorial board that government, cities and schools should be run more like a business and run by those with business management experience.
But schools are not businesses.
Chicago is not a McDonald’s franchise.
Our leaders need a bigger vision than softer buns and meltier cheese.