They promised more racially divisive tactics, and this week they delivered.
Soldiers for Stroger, the unauthorized pro-Todd Stroger group responsible for fliers outlining an alleged Irish political conspiracy, are back with a new set of leaflets, calling Alderman Toni Preckwinkle “Aunt Jemima on the Meter Box.”
The fliers, which are being placed on windshields from Lincoln Park to Hyde Park, are the latest in a series of attacks on opponents of County Board President Todd Stroger. The fliers are designed to look like parking tickets.
This one rips on Preckwinkle for supporting the sale of the city’s parking meters – which she voted against – and includes an image of Benjamin Franklin, with the words “Ben Franklin owned slaves” beneath it. A Franklin impersonator appeared in a Preckwinkle ad.
Mark Carter, who along with Wallace “Gator” Bradley created the first batch of Soldiers for Stroger fliers earlier this month, says the fliers are not sanctioned by Stroger.
“We’re doing this on our own because we represent the interests of the people being messed over by Preckwinkle (and U.S. Rep.) Danny Davis,” he says. Davis is backing Clerk of Court Dorothy Brown, and there is concern by some that having three black candidates would split the black vote, allowing Metropolitan Water Reclamation District President Terrence O'Brien to win the Democratic nomination.
Stroger has said that he is the only black official holding an executive position in the state managing a budget as large as Cook County's, and has complained of inherent racial bias in the media.
Tuesday he said editorials in some newspapers were designed to promote the papers’ preferred candidates. Carter called the city’s major newspapers “slave papers,” gerrymandered by Mayor Richard M. Daley, Speaker of the House Rep. Michael Madigan and other white politicians.
The inaccuracies of the flier – stating the Preckwinkle supported the unpopular parking meter sale – are irrelevant, Carter says.
“If she didn’t do that, she did something else bad against the people,” he says.
He said the group forgot to put the Soldiers for Stroger label on the fliers, and that they have not been asked by the Stroger campaign to back off.
Stroger told reporters this week he does not condone the fliers.
“That’s not the way I operate,” Stroger said. “What I’m distributing is Todd Stroger.”
“We don’t talk to them. They don’t tell us what to do,” Carter says. “We’re the underdog, we get chewed up like the underdog. When we see someone get messed up, we start helping.”
Just how much it will help the beleaguered Stroger, down in the polls and behind in fundraising, is questionable.
Preckwinkle has pulled ahead in polling, and her campaign says she is focused on campaigning in the waning days of the primary campaign. A Preckwinkle spokeswoman stopped short of blaming the Stroger campaign for the negative fliers, but called it “despicable” mudslinging.
“It’s not a matter of blame,” said Jessey Neves. “It’s a matter of staying focused.”
Karl A. Brinson, president of Chicago’s West Side NAACP chapter, said there is a current of black frustration in local politics, but said the tactics employed by Soldiers for Stroger are unnecessary.
“I think it just hurts anything you try to do for us,” he says. “It weakens that ability.”
But he said, Stroger has done all he can to distance himself from the group.
“The sad thing about things of this nature, you can’t really control what other people do,” he said.