On March 8, around 50 people packed the tight storefront space of Genesis on the Avenue, an office building — owned by Oak Park resident James Spearman — on Chicago Ave. in the Austin neighborhood of Chicago, a few blocks east of Austin Boulevard.
They were here for the grand opening of what is the only official presidential campaign office on the West Side and among only three Hillary Clinton campaign offices in the city. The other two in Chicago, on the North and South Sides, opened last month.
The West Side office, which is headed up by Hillary for America organizer Christiana Ho, an Oak Park and River Forest High School alumna, could represent one of the last major mobilizations by the Clinton campaign in the run-up to the March 15 Democratic primary election.
Earlier in the day, former President Bill Clinton stopped by MacArthur’s Restaurant on Madison Street in Austin before traveling to speak at a rally in Evanston.
Attendees at the March 8 opening included Oak Park Trustees Adam Salzman and Andrea Button Ott, Chicago Ald. Emma Mitts (37th), state Rep. Camille Lilly (78th) and Rev. Ira Acree, pastor of the Greater St. John Bible Church in Austin.
Mitts and Acree are among nine Illinois Clinton delegates who are hoping to witness her accept the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in Philadelphia in July.
State Rep. La Shawn K. Ford (8th) and former 37th Ward aldermanic candidate Tara Stamps are two West Siders among the nine Bernie Sanders delegates hoping the Vermont senator wins the Democratic nomination. Sanders opened an office last month in Chicago’s South Loop — the only one located in the city.
“I have a daughter who is 16 years old. My daughter could be the black woman president. I wanted to do this for her,” said community organizer and nonprofit professional Deborah Williams, who was influential in luring the Clinton campaign to Spearman’s space.
The location, she said, just happened to be clear of booked events for the next two weeks.
Campaign activity on behalf of both Democratic presidential candidates has been taking place at the North Avenue office of the Democratic Party of Oak Park, but Lilly said “a Hillary office is really needed, so we can embrace what she stands for and what she’s willing to work for.”
“[It’s good to have] another campaign office for another Illinoisan,” said Lilly. “Hillary set the stage long before today … So, we’ve got to make this home for the next seven days. We need to have access to information [around the clock].”
Lilly said she believes that Clinton’s Oak Park supporters will also utilize the West Side campaign office.
Charlie Lemke-Bell, 15, a freshman at OPRF, was one of the few teenagers in attendance.
“I love Hillary Clinton’s message and her ideas,” he said. “As a young person, they’re really appealing to what I go through. So, as a young person I wanted to help out and do anything I could to get her elected.”
Lemke-Bell’s mother, Sally Lemke, said her son has been hoping for a Clinton presidency since she lost the Democratic nomination to Obama in 2008 — back when the OPRF student was around 7 years old.
“I was in Washington, D.C., in 2008 during the primaries and I asked him, ‘What do you want me to get you [as a souvenir]?’ He wanted a Hillary bobble head. He even made this handmade Hillary sign and put it up in his window.”
“I’ve been kind of passionate about her for a while,” Lemke-Bell said. “I knew that she’s a smart person, and I knew that, even after she lost [in 2008] that she had a future and those smarts wouldn’t go to waste.”