In Chicago’s 46th Ward, a repeat candidate for alderman is promising not to make the same mistake his campaign made during the last election cycle when it comes to the LGBT community in his ward—take their votes for granted. James Cappleman, one of at least three openly gay candidates in the race to replace the current alderman, Helen Shiller, vowed June 19 at a gathering announcing his candidacy, to wage a broad-based campaign that will aggressively reach out to all of the ward’s various constituencies.
“I thought the gay community would rise up and vote for one of their own,” Cappleman told reporters at the event, referring to the split among gay voters during the 2007 aldermanic race. “But that’s not the way gay voters work; there is no gay vote.” Lessons learned from the last campaign also include refuting reports that his campaign is backed by wealthy interests and that his approach to decreasing crime includes “rounding up all of the African-American kids” and putting them in jail. “It’s just not true,” he said.
Cappleman received the endorsement of The Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund—a national LGBT political action committee—during the 2007 primary race but is unsure about his chances of winning the group’s support now that the race for alderman includes at least two other gay candidates, Don Nowotny and Gerald Farinas. But despite the chance that LGBT votes and resources could be split multiple ways in the run-up to next year’s election, Cappleman is predicting a runoff between himself and the current alderman, should she choose to enter the race. Shiller, who has yet to announce whether she will seek re-election, has been alderman of the 46th Ward since 1987.
Cappleman, who lost the 2007 election by several hundred votes, stated there would be a “world of difference” between this race and the last. “I’m an experienced campaigner,” he said. “I’ve gotten involved in areas of the ward that I haven’t before. I’m serving on different task forces.” Cappleman’s campaign, which garnered 47 percent of the vote in 2007, has hired a firm to help the candidate reach 52 percent in 2011. The all-out push to dispel untruths about the campaign and boost election returns is part of a tough strategy headed by the candidate himself, who promised, “I’m not going to be some meek little social worker [anymore].”