I'm going to miss Richard M. Daley. I'll be sad to see him step down as mayor of the great city of Chicago in the spring. He did a pretty good job running a big American city at a time when big American cities have been barely getting along. I was in Chicago in the fall of 1994, and I found myself enjoying my time in a highly efficient city - not to mention a friendly one. Its parks were first-rate, and its public transportation was highly reliable, in no small part to Mayor Daley's aggressive and bold leadership. But with his wife now battling cancer and the city's murder rate spiraling out of control, Daley obviously knows when to quit.
It now looks like that Chicago - a city whose politics are not for the faint of heart - could get as its next mayor a heartless bastard even by Windy City standards. White House Chief of Staff and longtime Chicagoan Rahm Emanuel, known for his own blend of aggressiveness and boldness, is possibly eyeing a 2011 run to succeed Mayor Daley, but his mean temperament and his bare-knuckles style might be a little over the top. Nevertheless, many liberals - that is, many liberals who aren't Chicagoans - are eager to see him run, not because they think he'd be a good mayor for Chicago but because they want him out of the White House. They blame Emanuel for selling out on the public option to get health care reform passed, and they are angry at his disparaging attitude towards the liberal base of the Democratic party, including some expletive-laden names he's called them. Emanuel's supporters - yes, he has some - will insist that he has compromised on key issues such as health care and clean energy to get something passed on the idea that part of what you want is better than nothing. But his arrogance, abrasiveness, and hotheadedness - Emanuel was the inspiration for the feisty deputy White House chief of staff Josh Lyman on NBC's "The West Wing" - have rubbed the wrong way with Democrats who see their (and President Obama's) poll numbers slipping and believe Emanuel's departure is an important step in getting their groove back.
What for a mayor would Emanuel make? I don't know if a guy like him is necessarily whom you ant dealing with city services, but he's certainly someone I'd want to tackle violent crime.
It now looks like that Chicago - a city whose politics are not for the faint of heart - could get as its next mayor a heartless bastard even by Windy City standards. White House Chief of Staff and longtime Chicagoan Rahm Emanuel, known for his own blend of aggressiveness and boldness, is possibly eyeing a 2011 run to succeed Mayor Daley, but his mean temperament and his bare-knuckles style might be a little over the top. Nevertheless, many liberals - that is, many liberals who aren't Chicagoans - are eager to see him run, not because they think he'd be a good mayor for Chicago but because they want him out of the White House. They blame Emanuel for selling out on the public option to get health care reform passed, and they are angry at his disparaging attitude towards the liberal base of the Democratic party, including some expletive-laden names he's called them. Emanuel's supporters - yes, he has some - will insist that he has compromised on key issues such as health care and clean energy to get something passed on the idea that part of what you want is better than nothing. But his arrogance, abrasiveness, and hotheadedness - Emanuel was the inspiration for the feisty deputy White House chief of staff Josh Lyman on NBC's "The West Wing" - have rubbed the wrong way with Democrats who see their (and President Obama's) poll numbers slipping and believe Emanuel's departure is an important step in getting their groove back.
What for a mayor would Emanuel make? I don't know if a guy like him is necessarily whom you ant dealing with city services, but he's certainly someone I'd want to tackle violent crime.
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