Will he, or won’t he? What does he hope to gain by delaying his decision? Those questions have put Chicago’s political class on tenterhooks.

We all want to know: Will Mayor Brandon Johnson decide to run for a second term?

Petitions have been out on the streets for weeks. There are nine candidates looking to win the February 2027 election, but so far, the mayor isn’t one of them.

For weeks, reporters have been asking “are you in?” For weeks, Johnson has been answering that he will decide “soon.” It’s getting late.

What does Johnson hope to accomplish by dragging his feet? After all, he’s not an NFL receiver trying to stay in bounds.

Some observers roll their eyes and opine that Johnson doesn’t have a chance of winning, so why should he bother to put himself through the wringer?

When reporters prodded him at a press briefing late last month, Johnson replied, “as much as I know, there’s this hurry to get to February. I’m in no rush, right? I don’t have a reason to be in a rush.”

Indeed, as an incumbent, Johnson has the luxury of waiting.

Instead, he touts his administration’s “progress,” and noted, “As I’ve repeated on multiple occasions, there’s no mayor in modern history that can ever say that they oversaw the city at a time in which our economy is growing and violence is going down.”

As the only........

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