- Brian Jackson/Sun-Times Media
- Rahm’s got the Chicago Firefighters Union behind him.
It seems like only yesterday that Mayor Rahm—backed by his mayoral body guards, of course—was marching into firehouses to tell the rank and file he was cutting their pensions.
In so many words, of course.
And you can’t achieve that goal by gutting the ranks, and cutting their salaries and benefits.
Moreover, in the matter of pensions—which the mayor has conveniently put off until after the election—Ryan remains confident that the mayor has backed off from his old hard-line stance.
Thus, Rahm undercuts his image as Mr. Bottom Line, which no one should have been dumb enough to fall for in the first place.
I, in contrast, see the mayor as Hobbes might: a nasty, brutish type who will take what he can unless stopped by a more powerful force.
