Vallas to run for Cook County board prez--as a Republican

The man who took Chicago's public schools out of the abyss, Paul Vallas, tells the Chicago Sun-Times' Carol Marin that he is running for president of the Cook County Board. Vallas, who was runner-up to Rod Blagojevich in the 2002 Democratic gubernatorial primary--will be running as a Republican.

Yes, the GOP is back in Illinois.

Currently, Cook County is "led" by Democrat Todd Stroger, who essentially inherited the office from his father. "Toddler" has continued his father's mismanagement of America's second-most populous county, using jobs and contracts to maintain the Democratic machine's patronage army.

Last year Stroger and his Democratic enablers raised the county's sales tax, giving Chicagoans the nation's highest sales tax.

Since his 2002 defeat at the hands of Blago--the wrong guy clearly won--Vallas has been busy fixing troubled school systems in Philadelphia and New Orleans. The native of Chicago's Beverly neighborhood has been working closely with Bobby Jindal, Louisiana' Republican governor.

Valas plans to return to his Southwest Side Chicago home later this year.

In 2006, as I've reported many times before, Barack Obama enthusiastically endorsed Stroger, actually he lied to myself and the other 5 million residents of Cook by declaring that Toddler was "a good progressive Democrat" who will "lead us into a new era of Cook County government."

I want the Stroger era to end.

As for Vallas, he told Marin, "Cook County is broken, and I like fixing things that are broken."

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Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama Election Democrats Illinois Politics Cook County Stroger cronyism Vallas Republican