Can Jesús save Chicago?

“SUCH a nice man,” says Lerry Knox, the boss of Unplugged Capital, a private-equity fund. He sits on the board of a charity alongside Jesús (Chuy) García, Rahm Emanuel’s challenger in the run-off for Chicago’s mayor. “He is so likeable, but he has no idea how to pay for everything,” sighs an Emanuel ally. “Sometimes I just want to shake him and say, ‘Sweetie, there is no money.’”

As early voting starts for the city elections on April 7th, Chicagoans are faced with a striking choice. One candidate is the mild-mannered, mustachioed Mr García, one of 17 Cook County commissioners, who has spent his career in local politics and is pretty universally liked. The other is the abrasive Mr Emanuel, who made a bundle in investment banking, served President Barack Obama as chief-of-staff, was elected as mayor in 2011 and turned out to be one of the most polarising politicians in the country.

Personalities aside, the two offer very different brands of Democratic politics. Mr Emanuel is a pragmatic centrist, closer to Bill Clinton (for whom he also worked) than to Mr Obama. He understands business, excels at attracting investors to Chicago and is so popular with plutocrats, including Republican ones, that he managed to raise $21m for his campaign in record time. Mr García is an old-fashioned leftist. He promises to do more for all Chicagoans, in particular those in the hard-up, crime-ridden neighbourhoods on the south and west sides of the city, where unemployment is high and the schools are bad.

At the García campaign headquarters—a converted restaurant with a giant doormat in the shape of his moustache—stacks of flyers in English and Spanish proclaim that Mr García will hire 1,000 new police officers, abolish red-light and speed cameras, protect pension and health-care benefits, make members of the public-school board stand for election and fight for a $15 hourly wage for workers. His first three promises would cost the city several hundred million dollars. Electing the school board would make any further closures of half-empty or underperforming schools impossible. And a $15 minimum wage could put small firms out of business.

The trouble with nice Mr García’s pledges is that Chicago is beyond broke. On February 27th Moody’s, a credit-rating agency, downgraded the city’s credit-worthiness to two notches above junk, mostly because Chicago is carrying more than $20 billion in unfunded liabilities for four of its pension funds, and already has a deficit of around $300m in its operating budget. Moreover, a payment of $550m for the police and firemen’s pension fund is due at the end of this year, and the public schools are $1.1 billion in the red.

Mark Kirk, a Republican senator from Illinois, has warned that Chicago could follow Detroit into bankruptcy if Mr García wins. García fans dispute this, pointing out that he was the floor leader for Toni Preckwinkle, president of the Cook County board, who managed to balance the county budget last year for the first time in years. Some on the left accuse Mr Kirk of racism for even suggesting that creditors might not trust Mr García.

Mr García hopes to appeal to Latinos and African-Americans, who are nearly two-thirds of Chicago’s voters. But many blacks think Hispanics and other immigrants are taking their jobs, while many Hispanics hold prejudices about blacks living on welfare. In the first round Mr Emanuel received almost 43% of the vote in wards with a black majority; Mr García got 25%. The latest polls strongly favour Mr Emanuel, but undecided voters could still tip the scales. Whoever wins will swiftly need to placate the bond market.