Braun opens new campaign office; del Valle picks up 2 endorsements

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Updated: March 8, 2011 1:18PM

Mayoral candidate Carol Moseley Braun opened a new campaign office in Uptown Saturday.

The partially heated fixer-upper space with exposed brick and peeling wall-paint was donated by a supporter.

Undaunted by being out-raised by a 20 to 1 ration by Rahm Emanuel, Braun said Chicago voters will decide who to support based on more than just who has the most money in their campaign coffers.

“You can’t just buy elections,” she said. “It’s 20-1. At some point ya just stop counting.”

Asked if she was worried about a new poll showing Emanuel with 44 percent of the vote — and the same support among African-American voters that she has — Braun said she wasn’t worried about Emanuel being perceived as a “stronger” candidate.

“I’m not going to go into a verse of ‘I am woman. Hear me roar,’ but women can be strong too,” Braun said as her supporters roared their approval.

Braun invited supporters to have some food but was aghast to see just a few vegetable trays.

“Where’s the cookies for the kids?” she asked, dispatching aides to a bakery to get some treats for her supporters’ children.

A few blocks away at the Swedish Museum, City Clerk Miguel del Valle accepted the endorsement of State Rep. Robyn Gabel (D-Evanston) and attorney Thomas Geoghegan, a former congressional candidate working on the lawsuit to overturn the city’s parking meter deal.

The endorsement from Gabel, whose district includes parts of Chicago, shows that even though he’s been out-raised by a 200 to 1 ratio by Emanuel, “Our campaign continues to gain momentum,” del Valle said.

On the South Side, Gery Chico shook hands at a Starbucks at 71st and Stony Island and talked up Saturday night’s Simeon-Morgan Park basketball showdown he planned to attend.

“Just last year, the board threatened to cut sophomore sports,” the former president of the board of the Chicago Public Schools said. “We can’t be doing that. Sports are fundamental to school. Sports are great for building character, teaching discipline, keeping our young people out of harm’s way, keeping them in school.”

Emanuel went door-to-door in Hyde Park as part of a citywide canvassing effort.

Some African-American families enthusiastically told Emanuel they would vote for him.

“He’s got my vote, and the vote of everyone else I’m going to talk to,” said jazz musician Winston Tyler, Jr., 65, who gave Emanuel a CD and told him to call if he needed any music for his campaign events.

Some white voters said they would consider voting for him.

Emanuel told Julia Govis he plans to hire more police officers.

“How does that work with the city budget the way it is?” she asked. Though Govis is a friend of Braun, she told Emanuel she’d consider voting for him.

University of Chicago MBA student Randy Anderson, 42, said Emanuel “likely has my vote.”

Emanuel may be the candidate best able to make Chicago’s historically graft-driven city government work, Anderson said: “He’ll probably be able to get things done,” Anderson said. “The system we have here in Chicago, it’s kind of like what they say about the mob: If you’re in their good graces, things go OK for ya. If not, you’re going to have trouble.”