Todd Stroger’s campaign to retain his post as president of the Cook County board hit another obstacle when he was a no-show Dec. 28 at a roundtable meeting he called for members of the Black Press.
Todd Stroger’s campaign to retain his post as president of the Cook County board hit another obstacle when he was a no-show Dec. 28 at a roundtable meeting he called for members of the Black Press.
Reporters waited for over an hour in an upper room at Stroger’s campaign headquarters, 2411 S. Michigan Ave., for him to arrive. After being pressed by reporters, members of his camp finally said Stroger wouldn’t make the meeting.
According to Carla V. Oglesby of CGC Communications, the PR firm involved with Stroger’s campaign, he “had a meeting about the hospitals” and could not attend the roundtable.
Stroger decries that the mainstream media provides less than stellar – even unfair – coverage of his progress and performance as county board president.
Pointedly, a recent local poll put him, as the incumbent, points behind his challengers in his race for re-election. The poor showing, Stroger’s camp has said in e-mails, led U.S. Rep. Danny Davis – who dropped out of the race in November – to endorse circuit court clerk Dorothy Brown for county board president, over Stroger.
In an effort to rally back and, “fight to get (Stroger’s) voice heard,” his campaign manager, Vince Williams, said the embattled official invited members of the Black Press to the roundtable discussion.
The exclusive invitation-only meeting was to “give his three-year report” and “talk about his upcoming election,” his camp explained.
As reporters waited for the board president to arrive, they grilled Williams about such things as Stroger barely using social media as part of his campaign, and why he wanted to turn to the Black Press seemingly only after he felt he’d gotten a whipping from other local media outlets. Reporters also asked how much money Stroger, who quit his job as 8th Ward alderman to run for the county board presidency after his father, John H. Stroger Jr., suffered a debilitating stroke, has in his campaign coffers.
Most questions could not be answered, though Williams was able to tell which city wards and Chicagoland areas Stroger is expected to win in the Feb. 2 primary and where the campaign needed to pick up steam.
“The challenges (to the campaign) has been a lack of traditional resources,” Williams said, acknowledging that Stroger lacks key support from labor unions and other pertinent organizations.
“We want everyone’s support. We’ve not gotten it to this date,” the campaign manager explained.
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