Emanuel says he wants to be mayor of Chicago/Rahm Emanuel not a cinch to succeed Mayor Richard Daley - If White House chief of staff runs for Chicago

Emanuel says he wants to be mayor of Chicago
By Katherine Skiba and Andrew L. Wang
Copyright by WGN News
April 19, 2010 9:21 PM
http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2010/04/rahm-emanuel-mayor-chicago-richard-daley-election-white-house-chief-staff-barack-obama-president.html


He has been equivocal on the subject in the past, but tonight White House chief of staff and native Chicagoan Rahm Emanuel made no bones about it. He wants to be the mayor of Chicago.

"I hope Mayor Daley seeks reelection. I will work and support him if he seeks reelection," Emanuel told Charlie Rose on the host's PBS talk show, in an interview to be broadcast at 11 p.m. "But if Mayor Daley doesn't, one day I would like to run for mayor of the city of Chicago," Emanuel continued. "That's always been an aspiration of mine even when I was in the House of Representatives."

In January, after the Washington Post published a story that said Emanuel, a one-time Daley aide and longtime supporter of the mayor, was mulling a mayoral run, Emanuel did not deny the report, instead saying in a statement he was "100 percent focused on the job at hand: serving President Obama as his chief of staff."

At the time, Daley himself dismissed the report as gossip.

But tonight, Emanuel said he missed the regular contact he had with constituents as a representative of Illinois' 5th District. "You learned a lot," he told Rose, according to a transcript of the interview.

Emanuel has long been rumored to covet the job of Speaker of the House, but he said in the interview that hope was "over."

Emanuel was a chief fundraiser for the mayor's first election campaign in 1989 and later served as an aide to Daley. He was a White House staffer during the Clinton administration and after a brief career investment banking, was elected to Congress in 2002.



Rahm Emanuel not a cinch to succeed Mayor Richard Daley - If White House chief of staff runs for Chicago mayor, he wouldn’t necessarily be the front-runner to replace Daley
By Rick Pearson and Hal Dardick
Copyright © 2010, Chicago Tribune
8:53 p.m. CDT, April 20, 2010
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-rahm-emanuel-0421-20100420,0,5738333.story


Judging by the attention he gets inside the Washington Beltway every time he talks about it, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel must be the odds-on favorite to replace Mayor Richard Daley.

But back in Chicago, where Emanuel made his political bones, the former congressman and political insider's sharp elbows and national cachet aren't much of a guarantee that he will replace the man who remains firmly in control of Chicago.

Just ask the Daleys.

"Absolutely not, and I don't think anyone would say that," said Cook County Commissioner John Daley when asked Tuesday if Emanuel would be the front-runner in a mayor's race that didn't involve his brother. "And I don't think (Emanuel) would say that, knowing the electorate of Chicago."

A return home to run for mayor means Emanuel, who renewed his interest in the job on national TV Monday, would have to address some long-standing political baggage. Questions abound about his quick stockpiling of wealth on Wall Street, help from a Daley patronage army to win a seat in Congress and chats with disgraced ex- Gov. Rod Blagojevich about filling a vacant U.S. Senate seat.

Not that the top job at City Hall is even open. Indeed, longtime Daley loyalists and advisers said privately they would be shocked if the mayor didn't run again next February. Friends of both men also said Emanuel's desire to someday run for mayor in a clear field is nothing new to Daley.

Given that, Emanuel's decision to pipe up about his interest in Daley's chair on the Charlie Rose show — "one day I would like to run for mayor of the city of Chicago" — could partly be a way to spread his elbows and stake out a spot in a post-Daley pecking order.

Just as Emanuel hasn't talked in depth about some of his political past, he did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday. And as the Washington press corps awaits a major departure from Barack Obama's inner circle, the White House on Tuesday ratcheted back speculation that the chief of staff was on the verge of departing for a 2011 mayoral campaign.

Emanuel "was talking about a scenario where if Mayor Daley doesn't run for re-election," deputy White House press secretary Bill Burton told reporters aboard Air Force One, "But we all know that Mayor Daley is running for re-election. It's something that many kids in Chicago dream of, growing up to be a mayor, so it's one of the great jobs in American politics."

Tamping down Emanuel's televised mayoral ambitions, Burton noted that his childhood dream was to be an astronaut while his boss, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, "wants to ride in the Tour de France."

Daley had no public appearances Tuesday, and City Hall issued a statement downplaying Emanuel's comments.

"It's not surprising when someone who is prominent and accomplished and a Chicagoan says they are interested in someday becoming mayor," said Jacquelyn Heard, Daley's press secretary.

Emanuel's declaration of interest in the mayoral job does come at a delicate time for Daley, who is weighing a record seventh term next year while his wife, Maggie, is fighting a difficult battle with cancer. Despite Emanuel's words of support for another Daley bid, any perception that he's trying to nudge Daley out of the way under such circumstances could leave the former congressman open to charges of being viewed as coldly opportunistic.

It was Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn, who has long backed Emanuel's political bids, who may have put the White House chief of staff's mayoral ambitions in perspective. "I thought the world was enough for him," Quinn said.

Emanuel isn't the first member of Chicago's congressional delegation to ponder a City Hall campaign. Democratic Reps. Jesse Jackson Jr. and Luis Gutierrez each talked up potential mayoral bids, only to back down from challenging Daley. But with $1.2 million in federal campaign funds that he could use in a local race, Emanuel has served notice to a potentially large mayoral field that he would be ready to move quickly to embark on a hard-hitting battle should Daley not seek re-election.

Emanuel joined Daley in his 1989 campaign as a senior strategist and chief fundraiser. That success led to a spot as national finance director for the 1992 Bill Clinton presidential campaign, then major roles in the administration. Emanuel worked for a Chicago investment firm and was elected to a North Side congressional seat in 2002. Thoughts of becoming House speaker went by the wayside when Obama tapped him as White House chief of staff.

Beneath the official Emanuel biography remain several unanswered questions.

In 2 1/2 years after joining an investment banking firm headed by Clinton fundraiser Bruce Wasserstein, Emanuel parlayed his role as managing director with the political connections he made in the administration to earn more than $16 million on fees the bank earned off of eight clients involving mergers and acquisitions, according to federal records.

Emanuel also had a profitable stint as a Clinton appointee to the board of mortgage lender Freddie Mac, collecting at least $320,000 in fees and proceeds from stock options. His tenure on the board coincided with a multibillion-dollar accounting scandal at the quasi-public firm, though a government investigation did not implicate him.

Emanuel's congressional bid became enmeshed in the city's Hired Truck scandal. Convicted former city water boss Donald Tomczak testified and former Water Management official Gerald Wesolowski said in a plea agreement that water workers were deployed for Emanuel's congressional campaign and the campaigns of others, including Daley, in exchange for better city pay.

In late 2008, Emanuel served as the point person for discussions between then-President-elect Obama's transition team and Blagojevich about whom Obama wanted to see as his Senate successor. Emanuel was heard on several undercover federal recordings talking about possible Senate picks with Blagojevich and the then-governor's chief of staff before the two were arrested.

An internal investigation conducted by Greg Craig, an attorney working for Obama who later became White House counsel, concluded there was no dealmaking evident in Emanuel's conversations with Blagojevich.

Tribune reporters Bob Secter, Todd Lighty and John Chase in Chicago and Katherine Skiba in Washington contributed.

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