Thaindian News

April 21, 2010 (Pen Men at Work): Rahm Emanuel pronounced on Charlie Rose’s PBS program on Monday that, if Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago resolves not to run for a seventh term, he would like to occupy his place.

He has declared that the post of mayor has always been his ambition, even when he was in the House of Representatives.

The unofficial declaration was deemed as insignificant on Tuesday by a White House spokesperson. However, it is already making an impact in Chicago. There, political analysts have enunciated that Emanuel’s bulldog manner and Washington qualifications might not endear him with the city’s deep-rooted Democratic political machine.

A typical Chicago political career, particularly one that heads to the mayor’s workplace, commences from devoting extensive hours in the neighborhood ward associations and steadily entering the city hall. This is a course that Emanuel has largely circumvented.

Before he became the chief of staff under President Obama, Emanuel’s solitary link to Chicago’s tight-knit political network was as the main fundraiser for Mayor Daley’s primary election campaign in 1989.

Larry Bennett is a professor of political science at the DePaul University. He has declared that numerous particulars of Rahm’s backdrop don’t exhibit compatibility with Chicago politics. This could make Rahm’s candidature susceptible to Republicans searching for a footing after lying inactive for years.

His associations with President Clinton as a leading adviser and with President Obama have the capacity to electrify the Republicans to choose a high-flying business leader to confront Rahm’s qualifications.

However, other political scientists have stated that Emanuel’s powerful Washington résumé is an advantage, and could help in fundraising. Dick Simpson is a person, who educates about political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has proclaimed that, if Rahm will indeed run for becoming a mayor, he needs to have a political battalion and ratifications from the Chicago political machine.

Simpson has also declared that Rahm’s status as an obstinate, aggressive and, at times, crude dealmaker is like a double-edged sword.

Simpson has revealed that Rahm has to possess the tenacity a mayor requires to govern a city. However, Rahm is not a coalition constructor.

Bennett has explicated that Rahm is quite competent but his implacable nature might place hurdles in his path of being a chief executive.