Garcia, Emanuel Square Off In TV Attack Ads
CHICAGO (CBS) -- With the election less than two weeks away, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his closest challenger are now fighting it out on the airwaves.
Jesus "Chuy" Garcia's first campaign ad did not hit TV screens until this week, while Emanuel has had several commercials airing for weeks.
Garcia's first attack ad slams Emanuel's record on public safety, and for failing to live up to a 2011 campaign promise about putting more police officers on the street.
"The mayor says we can't afford more community police, but he's given big corporations $100 million in tax breaks. If there's enough money to keep them happy, there ought to be enough to keep us safe," Garcia says in the 30-second spot.
The Emanuel campaign insisted there have been no tax breaks for corporations during his tenure, and has come out with its own ad attacking Garcia for voting in favor of an $80 million property tax hike when he was an alderman in 1986.
"It's old school politics. Chuy Garcia voted to hit us with the largest property tax hike in city history, and helped himself to an illegal property tax break," the narrator of Emanuel's latest ad says.
Garcia said that tax vote was made nearly 30 years ago to help Mayor Harold Washington save the city from financial ruin.
The latest polls have shown Garcia running a distant second to Emanuel, who is hovering around the threshold needed to avoid a one-on-one runoff in April.
