Coverage of the Special Election to replace convicted former Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. has taken reporters to Washington, New York and seemingly everywhere but Chicago’s south shore where 2nd District voters live. On Tuesday, those voters will go to the polls to make one of the biggest decisions in recent Chicago history. Will they surrender control of their local representation to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, his Super PAC and his Big Apple financiers?
Chicago vs. New York
There are a number of metaphors being used to describe the campaign to replace Jesse Jackson Jr. on Chicago’s south side and south suburbs. Chicago vs. New York, rich vs. poor, establishment vs. reform – there’s no shortage of confrontation and conflict in this particular race. But that’s mainly due to the unprecedented involvement of the Mayor of New York in Chicago’s local elections. The Michael Bloomberg’s Super PAC has already spent over $2.2 million on the Robin Kelly campaign.
There’s no denying that on one side of the political fight is Democratic candidate Robin Kelly, herself a New Yorker. She’s backed by a NY Super PAC, NY media outlets, NY billionaire and multi-millionaire politicians and even two Mayors with globalist backgrounds and ambitions for the White House. Joining them, surprisingly enough, are the Republican and Green parties’ nominees – sitting down for cozy on-air chats without so much as a word of protest in solidarity of their fellow candidate Marcus Lewis – the top challenger to Kelly and systematically excluded from the election.
On the other side is Marcus Lewis. The independent second-time candidate is the only one in the race who wasn’t suddenly surprised by the corruption permeating throughout the Democratic Machines of Chicago, New York and Washington. He challenged Jackson just last year and shocked the establishment by garnering 40,006 votes. First, Lewis was forced to collect 20-times the number of petition signatures as the rest of the candidates just to appear on the ballot. Then, he was sued by the Democratic Party activists in the federal government and told that as a US mailman, it was illegal for him to run for office.
Then, the local Chicago AM radio station that usually covers and supports the honest and sincere efforts of grassroots volunteers in the city’s black community suddenly appeared to switch sides and is inexplicably using the most hated, despised and unethical tactic of the elite establishment – blacking out media coverage of the independent reform candidate.
Protest at WVON
For the past two weeks, the Marcus Lewis for Congress campaign and WVON radio have been playing a game of cat and mouse. Lewis’ supporters announce a demonstration outside the south side radio studio to protest the candidate’s exclusion from the station’s on-air candidates forum. In response, the show’s producers quietly change the date of the show. Lewis reschedules his protest and the station reschedules the round table. For some reason – WVON radio was determined to make sure the highest vote-getter of the group was systematically censored.
Why? According to one witness who wished to remain anonymous because he or she is actually another candidate in the race, show host Cliff Kelly reportedly admitted, “Marcus Lewis gets no forum time because he takes votes away from Robin Kelly.” Considering Lewis received over 40,000 votes in his bid for the Congressional seat compared to the 30,872 votes garnered by Robin Kelly in her recent bid for the same seat, it’s not surprising that Chicago’s establishment media is pulling out all the stops to derail the independent’s campaign.
The first candidates roundtable at WVON on March 21 featured the Democrat, Republican and Green candidates, all of whose recent vote totals for the 2nd District seat combined don’t equal Lewis’ total. The show was rescheduled after word of the protest reached producers. The second taping was scheduled for March 22, but was again cancelled for the same reason. The third show occurred April 3, and as promised, the Marcus Lewis campaign was there, outside the studios marching and protesting the candidate’s exclusion.
Unjustified and deliberate
“These protests are over the willful and intentional exclusion of independent candidate Marcus Lewis who is running to fill the vacancy of disgraced former Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. from participating in an on-air forum in-studio on the Cliff Kelly Show” a Lewis campaign supporter explained.
“This is unjustified and a deliberate scheme by a radio station to purposely offer its listeners a ‘slighted view’ which is bias, unfair and disrespectful,” Lewis says in a recent statement, “Thus, listeners will think these are Democratic nominee Robin Kelly’s only competition for the seat. Kelly is being supported by the radio station and has declined to attend this forum.”
Just as with all the Special Election’s debates and candidate forums, Democrat Robin Kelly has been missing in action. Instead, she has the luxury of letting Chicago’s local media outlets do her campaigning for her. And it should be no surprise that every one of the Windy City’s network television news shows is owned by Wall Street media corporations.
A New York candidate funded with New York money, fronted by the New York political machine, pushed by the New York media – that’s a curious description for a local Chicago Congressional race. But there’s an alternative – a local candidate with local ties to the community and not to party bosses. Marcus Lewis is the independent candidate to replace Jesse Jackson Jr.
Already promising that if elected he will caucus with the Democrats in Congress to show his solidarity with the district’s voters, Lewis is a genuine, sincere and credible choice to be the next Congressman of Illinois’ 2nd Congressional District. With the past election of the anti-Machine Jesse Jackson Jr. and the election of Councilwoman Sandi Jackson against the Machine-appointed Alderman, the 2nd District has a proud history of being one of the few Chicago communities brave enough, or possibly betrayed enough, to stand up to the Machine and vote for an independent reformer.
Will these south side and south suburb voters shock the establishment yet again? Going by the panic, tactics and dirty tricks that have been repeatedly thrown at independent Marcus Lewis during his campaign, it would appear the race is a lot closer than the media and the Machine would like to admit. And if the 40,000 honest, anti-corruption voters who voted for Lewis the first time get their way on Tuesday, they’ll be saying no to New York in resounding fashion. In fact, they’ll be saying it so loud that Michael Bloomberg and his Super PAC will hear it all the way in the Big Apple. Take that from the Second City.
For more information on independent candidate Marcus Lewis, visit MarcusLewisForCongress2013.org.
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