Rahm Emanuel's master plan to quit his job as White House Chief of Staff and become omnipotent God-Emperor of Chicago is going exactly ... as ... planned. Everyone hates him? Check! He lacks the army of fanatically loyal political retainers needed to win an election in Chicago? Check! His own tenants are trying to keep him out of his house, no doubt with the help of liberal renter laws that liberals like Emanuel helped pass? Check!
Rahm left Chicago in early 2009, in the midst of the worst housing market in decades, so naturally he couldn't sell chez Emanuel and had to find some poor saps to rent it who didn't mind that "Rahm-y" smell. But now that he has to re-establish Chicago residency, these tenants will be happy to move into some single-room occupancy hotel for transients to make room for their future mayor, right?
Emanuel, widely expected to announce a decision about his candidacy within days, recently called the tenants renting his home on Chicago's North Side and asked them to move out so he could move back in, spokesman and close friend Rick Jasculca said Tuesday.
But the couple said no. They extended their lease until next year just days before Mayor Richard Daley announced he wouldn't seek re-election, Jasculca said, and told Emanuel they don't want to leave.
Ha ha, fools! Do you think niceties like "leases" mean anything to Rahm Emanuel? Here's the deal, hapless renters: you need to be out of that house by Friday and maybe, maybe you will go forward in your life with all your limbs still attached to your torso. No promises, though.
Oh, but WAIT! Doesn't Rahm have a wife and kids and such? Didn't he leave them behind in Chicago when he moved to D.C. to live in his pathetic basement apartment? Is Rahm Emanuel evicting his own family from his house? Probably!
Anyway, here are some mean things that people in Chicago have to say about their future mayor:
"There is nothing in his history to show he wanted to be mayor or that this was his dream job. If there were ... he would have been involved in local activities, organizations, spoken out about violence," said political consultant Delmarie Cobb, who was press secretary for the Democratic National Convention in 1996 and the Rev. Jesse Jackson's 1988 presidential bid.
And:
Nobody argues Emanuel would not be a formidable candidate give his experience, name recognition and fundraising capabilities, but he has no ready-made army of volunteers ready to hit Chicago streets on his behalf. "He's never had a personal organization," said political analyst Don Rose, who noted Emanuel's election to Congress in 2002 he aided by political organizations loyal to Daley. In effect, Emanuel borrowed them, Rose said. "Most of those don't really owe him any loyalty," he said. In fact, "He knows many of these people but they don't necessarily like him," Rose added.
Delmarie Cobb and Don Rose: your corpses will be at the bottom of a disused rock quarry near the Illinois/Wisconsin border very soon, along with the bodies of Rahm's tenants/children. [ AP ]
If he can put together an army of blues musicians and master barbeque chefs, he'll have this wrapped up. No Republican will dare run against him.
we will welcome him w/ open arms knowing we will need him to lead the defences against the invading armies of president palin and the american realz.