Mayor "Diamond Joe" Quimby is better equipped to preside over Chicago than Quigley
Is it possible to be too stupid to be mayor of Chicago?
Three years into the calamitous administration of Brandon Johnson, that might not seem possible. But, Mike Quigley of Lakeview, who is a congressman representing Illinois’ 5th congressional district, could be that person.
After three decades as an elected official while serving without distinction -- more on that later -- Quigley, who is still running for reelection to Congress, announced in January on the Fran Spielman Show podcast that he is also running for mayor of Chicago.
Such a ludicrous situation is yet another argument against partisan gerrymandering. If Illinois’ congressional districts were drawn fairly, Quigley’s mayoral run would be an easy T-ball home run shot against him for his general election opponent. But in Illinois, legislators, at least Democratic ones, choose their voters. It is supposed to be the other way around.
Late last month Quigley chose to officially --as opposed to, I guess, unofficially -- announce he is running for mayor at the long-shuttered Uptown Theatre at Broadway and Lawrence on the North Side.
Here’s the stupid part.
Except for a random event here and there, the Uptown has been closed since 1981. It’s a longtime eyesore.
Online media and television coverage of the event shows Quigley not on the venue’s main stage -- the actual theater was roped off to keep out busybodies -- but in the cavernous five-story high lobby of the Uptown on a makeshift platform. But rally-goers did have the opportunity to view the peeling paint on the ceiling and on the lobby’s once grand columns.
Well, at least the washroom facilities, which are plentiful -- after all, the seating capacity of the Uptown is over 4,000 -- could accommodate the modest crowd.
Nope.
Attendees who needed to relieve themselves had to do so outside the venue, in a potty trailer parked on Broadway. Although urinating in an alley would have been a more authentic Uptown neighborhood experience.
Electricity for the Quigley rally was supplied by a generator parked in front.
Quigley’s choice of this decaying venue definitively exemplifies that Chicago’s best days -- after decades of political malfeasance -- are clearly in its past.
A campaign slogan could be, “Vote Quigley, vote for continued rot.”
A look at Quigley’s career
It’s hard to ascertain where Quigley really stands on issues because he’s been in different political camps over the years.
Around the time the Uptown closed, Quigley, a DuPage County native, moved to Lakeview, where he set himself up as an anti-establishment activist in the doomed movement against installing lights at Wrigley Field. Predictably, he lost that battle, the owner of the Chicago Cubs, the Tribune Company, as well as Major League Baseball, wanted night games at the Friendly Confines. And they got them.
Then Quigley was hired as an aide to Alderman Bernard Hansen of the 44th Ward. For the first three years of Harold Washington’s term as mayor, Hansen was a member of the old guard Vrdolyak 29, the Chicago Democratic Machine City Council opposition bloc to the city’s first black mayor.
Just north of the 44th is the 46th Ward, where Helen Shiller, the spiritual godmother of the current City Council Democratic Socialist Caucus, was alderman. She was a fervent Washington ally.
In 1991, Quigley ran against Shiller. “In those days,” far-left podcaster Ben Joravsky said of Quigley in 2020, “he was running as some sort of Mayor [Richard M.] Daley supporter.”
It was more than that. Daley enthusiastically endorsed Quigley, but Shiller prevailed.
In 1998, Quigley was elected to the Cook County Board of Commissioners, where he veered back into anti-establishment mode by butting heads with Cook County Board president John Stroger, a longtime old school ward boss, generally over Tax Increment Financing (TIF) legislation.
Quigley prevailed in a low-turnout special Democratic Primary election to fill the vacant 5th district seat after Rahm Emanuel resigned so he could serve as Barack Obama's White House chief of staff. He won 22 percent of the vote in a 13-candidate race. Winning the Democratic primary in the 5th means almost certain victory in the general election. Quigley hasn’t faced a serious challenge since then.
In Congress, Quigley has positioned himself toward the diminishing center of his Democratic Party.
But where does Quigley stand ideologically?
Regarding Quigley’s political stances, it’s easy to think of Captain Louis Renault, the duplicitous police officer in the classic movie Casablanca, who admits to a Nazi big shot, “I have no conviction, if that’s what you mean; I blow with the wind, and the prevailing wind happens to be from Vichy.”
Reformer. Not a reformer. Reformer. Nothing.
If Quigley is the best Chicago can offer, then the city is doomed. He's a man who doesn’t stand for much and who has accomplished little in his 28 years as an elected official.
How little?
Shortly after his January announcement, Quigley appeared in a social media video decrying the dilapidated status of the Rogers Park Metra train station. He bragged about his status as “a senior member or the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation,” adding, “I’m fighting to make sure Chicago gets the federal funds needed to improve public transit.”
Which led to this zinger of a retort on the Chicago Contrarian X account:
“Now a ‘senior member’ of the House, if after 16 years on Capitol Hill he hasn't figured out how return money to Chicago, how will Quigley fare as mayor and what can a freshmen congressmen do in 2027?”
Chicago needs a talented person with a record of success -- and that does not mean repeatedly getting elected to office -- to succeed Johnson. Imagine you purchase a struggling company that is on the brink of collapse -- as Chicago is -- you are not going to say, “I need to hire someone like Mike Quigley to turn this disaster around.”
Quigley and Quimby
On the other hand, Quigley is quite good at giving bloviating speeches that offer nothing but cliches and forgettable platitudes, much like the mayor of Springfield on The Simpsons television show, "Diamond Joe" Quimby.
For instance, on the previously mentioned Spielman podcast, the Chicago Sun-Times reporter pressed Quigley on one of Chicago’s worst financial sinkholes: the dozens of schools operating at less than half capacity. He lamely replied to her:
“I don’t think you do anything without the input of the communities and the neighborhoods.”
But Spielman pressed him. Which led to this Quimby-esqe reply:
“I think what I’m saying is I think there’s a way to balance those resources. That means that some of those schools aren’t used in the way they are now, but they’re used in a way that’s productive and efficient for the schools as a whole. But no one’s left out.”
Heck, Quigley and Quimby even have similar names. If by some catastrophe Quigley is sworn in as mayor next year, it probably won’t be long before quipsters will be referring to Mike as “Mayor Quimby.”
For now, “mayoral candidate Quimby” will have to suffice.
You know, officially kicking off a campaign at a theater that even the sycophantic news site Block Club Chicago calls “rundown” sounds like something out of a Simpsons episode. And "Mayor" Quimby is clearly not above running for two political offices at the same time.
It’s too bad there wasn’t a mischievous rascal like Bart Simpson to pull the plug on that generator outside the Uptown at the Quigley announcement.
Well, there is always next time.
Featured image by U.S. House of Representatives CC BY-SA 3.0
