Toni Preckwinkle is a wily, seasoned politician, and she showed Lori Lightfoot a few savvy moves on election night by setting terms for the contest ahead of the April 2 runoff election.

Two attributes need to define the next mayor, Preckwinkle stated. First, she needs to be Chicago’s ambassador to the world. She also needs to be able to run the city, Preckwinkle added.

“It’s not enough to stand at a podium and talk about what you want to see happen,” Preckwinkle told a cheering crowd. “You have to come to this job with the capacity and the capability to make your vision a reality.”

As the president of the Cook County Board, and head of the Cook County Democratic Party, Preckwinkle reasonably sees her resume as a competitive advantage over Lightfoot, who lacks such major titles.

But resumes don’t run City Hall. Mayors do.

Read the rest at chicagotribune.com.

David Greising is the president and chief executive of the Better Government Association, joining the BGA in 2018. For nearly a century, the BGA has fought for honest and effective government through investigative journalism and policy advocacy.

Greising’s career started at the City News Bureau of Chicago, with stops at the Chicago Sun-Times, Business Week magazine, the Chicago Tribune and Reuters. He was a co-founder of the Chicago News Cooperative and worked briefly as a consultant to World Business Chicago. Today, Greising writes on government issues in regular columns for the Tribune and Crain’s Chicago Business.

Under Greising’s leadership, the BGA has played a key role in uncovering public corruption amidst the wide-ranging federal probe, starting with an in-depth report about Ald. Ed Burke’s conflicts of interest before the federal charges against Burke. The BGA also has exposed waste and fraud at O’Hare and the proliferation of corruption and poverty into Dolton, Lyons and other Chicago suburbs. The BGA’s policy team has led calls for ethics reform in Chicago’s City Council and in state government.