Foxx and friends: Former mayoral rivals join forces to support state’s attorney
But pep rally suggests Preckwinkle, Lightfoot not yet BFFs
Former adversaries Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle teamed up Friday, burying the hatchet to stump for embattled Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx 18 days before the March primary.
The three elected officials joined labor leaders and others for a get-out-the-vote rally at a West Loop union headquarters.
But the political pep rally suggested the two former mayoral rivals are not yet BFFs.
When Preckwinkle took to the podium, she took a moment to name all the elected officials in the room — even asking any she missed to raise their hands.
The Hyde Park Democrat made no mention of Lightfoot, who clobbered Preckwinkle in last year’s mayor race.
Such hiccups aside, the two focused on painting Foxx as the only candidate to reform the county’s criminal justice system. Preckwinkle described her protégé as a “forceful leader” on the county’s criminal justice reform efforts.
The County Board president touted the first-term prosecutor’s focus on violent crime, on “the shooters and the killers because that’s where our resources ought to go” while acknowledging the “errors of the past” through exonerating wrongful convictions.
Lightfoot made the case for Foxx, lauding her as a prosecutor who has struck a balance between going after those “causing the harm” and those who get caught up in the criminal justice system who may not need to be there.
Those attending the rally also included labor leaders from the Chicago Teachers Union and the Service Employees International Union, which has an ownership stake in Sun-Times Media.
The Friday rally at Painters District Council #14 headquarters offered Foxx a chance to try to set the record straight.
“There has been a lot of rhetoric in the last several months about who I am and what I stand for,” Foxx said. “I stand unapologetically as a child of Cabrini … I don’t mention that for any sense of bravery for myself, there are too many children living in neighborhoods today in which they are seeking shelter in bath tubs … and yet our criminal justice system has not been focused on them.”
That “rhetoric” has largely stemmed from Foxx’s handling of the case of “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett.
Foxx faces former prosecutor Bill Conway, former Ald. Bob Fioretti, and former prosecutor and 2016 state’s attorney candidate Donna More in the Democratic primary on March 17.
A poll released Monday by the Conway campaign shows Foxx at 28%, just two percent ahead of Conway, who was at 26% in the poll.