{"id":217423,"date":"2010-01-21T22:07:11","date_gmt":"2010-01-22T03:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c60fd53ef0120a7faa0cb970b"},"modified":"2010-01-21T22:07:11","modified_gmt":"2010-01-22T03:07:11","slug":"preckwinkle-surges-into-lead-in-cook-county-board-president-contest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/217423","title":{"rendered":"Preckwinkle surges into lead in Cook County Board president contest"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the print edition<\/em>:<\/p>\n

By Robert Becker and Hal Dardick<\/p>\n

Tribune reporters<\/p>\n

Chicago Ald. Toni Preckwinkle has surged to a significant lead in the
\nDemocratic primary for Cook County Board president as she has become
\nbetter known and liked among suburban voters, a Tribune\/WGN-TV poll
\nshows.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nBoard President Todd Stroger fell to last place among the four
\ncandidates, his support dropping to 11 percent from 14 percent six
\nweeks ago.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nDuring that time, Preckwinkle supplanted Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy
\nBrown as the front-runner with the support of 36 percent of likely
\nDemocratic voters, up from 20 percent, the poll found. Brown, who held
\na lead last month built upon her name recognition, fell from 29 percent
\nto 24 percent.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nMetropolitan Water Reclamation District President Terrence O’Brien rose to 16 percent from 11 percent in the December poll.\n<\/p>\n

The survey of 503 likely Democratic primary voters, conducted Jan.
\n16-20, found only 12 percent undecided in the contest, putting the onus
\non Preckwinkle’s opponents to use the final days of the campaign to try
\nto take support away from her. The survey’s error margin was 4.4
\npercentage points.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nPreckwinkle is airing TV ads promising to repeal the remainder of the
\nunpopular and controversial Cook County sales tax increase backed by
\nStroger. She has seen her name recognition increase from about half of
\nthe county’s likely suburban voters last month to three-quarters in the
\nnew poll.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nDemocratic voters with a favorable impression of Preckwinkle have
\ndoubled from 23 percent last month to 45 percent now. Her favorable
\nimpression among white voters also doubled to 54 percent. Those factors
\nhelp explain why she has the support of 46 percent of white voters in
\nthe contest.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nO’Brien, the lone white candidate, has the backing of 25 percent of white voters.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nAmong black voters, Brown scored 36 percent support, Preckwinkle had 24 percent, Stroger had 23 percent and O’Brien 4 percent.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nPreckwinkle, the former high school history teacher and current
\nfive-term alderman whose ward includes the home of President Barack
\nObama, has avoided injecting race into the campaign. Preckwinkle has
\nargued that the Feb. 2 primary is a political test among all Democrats,
\nnot just African-Americans.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nThe poll showed Brown losing support among suburban county voters as
\nher opponents in recent weeks publicly questioned her practice of
\naccepting gifts, including cash, from employees.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nMany of those gifts were presented to her at birthday parties that
\ndoubled as fundraisers, organized by top-level employees, with
\nsignificant contributions from many of her 2,100 workers.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nThat issue arose before the campaign, but this week reports focused on
\nher practice of requiring employees to pay $2 or $3 a day to wear jeans
\non some Fridays. She said the money goes to pay for employee
\nappreciation events and to make charitable donations, but she has yet
\nto produce records to document it.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nAbout two-thirds of likely Democratic voters continued to disapprove of
\nStroger’s job performance. His administration has been dogged by the
\nunpopular sales tax hike and hiring scandals.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nOn the campaign trail, Stroger blames the news media for his bad image.
\nHe says he has done a good job of keeping the county financially sound
\nand the public health system intact during a deep recession.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nThat contention has been lost in the controversies over the
\npenny-on-the-dollar sales tax increase and his hiring of a troubled
\nsteakhouse busboy for an executive post.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nThe tax increase spurred talk of secession among outlying suburbs and
\nprompted his old colleagues in the General Assembly to seek political
\ncover by making it easier to override the board president’s veto.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nIn his three years as president, Stroger never escaped the perception
\nthat clout rather than merit installed him in the office. A wide array
\nof establishment Democrats backed him to replace his then-ailing
\nfather, John, in the November 2006 election.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nAlong the way, however, Stroger has lost much of that support. And Stroger’s opponents have all taken aim at his leadership.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nO’Brien has focused his campaign on repealing the sales tax increase,
\nbut has been criticized for raising the water district’s annual
\nproperty taxes by more than 30 percent during his decade-plus tenure as
\npresident.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nDespite the campaign’s focus on the tax issue, the poll found that only
\n54 percent of voters favor a repeal of the remaining half-percent
\nincrease in the sales tax. Nearly a third oppose repeal.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nO’Brien has pledged to immediately roll back the remaining half cent of
\nthe sales tax increase, while Brown and Preckwinkle have promised to do
\nso over time.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nOnly Preckwinkle has unconditionally backed making permanent the
\nindependent board overseeing the county’s vast public health system.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nPreckwinkle’s opponents are criticizing her for decade-old campaign donations from convicted political fixer Antoin "Tony" Rezko<\/a>.
\nPreckwinkle has said that she knew Rezko during the 1990s when he was
\ndeveloping affordable housing in her 4th Ward. Preckwinkle said their
\nrelationship soured around 2000 after she confronted him about problems
\nat his developments.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the print edition: By Robert Becker and Hal Dardick Tribune reporters Chicago Ald. Toni Preckwinkle has surged to a significant lead in the Democratic primary for Cook County Board president as she has become better known and liked among suburban voters, a Tribune\/WGN-TV poll shows. Board President Todd Stroger fell to last place among […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3992,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-217423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3992"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217423\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}