Daley Finds a Friend

By Rachelle Bowden in News on Aug 25, 2005 9:03PM

Just a couple of weeks ago, Senator Barack Obama, in light of the ongoing City Hall scandals, expressed reservations about putting his support behind Mayor Daley’s possible reelection bid. Considering Obama’s enormous popularity and appeal, this could be bad news for the administration, and good news for any candidate who wants to unseat Daley and is able to win over Obama.

Just when it looked like Daley might be starting to lose political support from his friends, US Representative Rahm Emanuel yesterday gave the mayor props for cleaning up the corruption in his office and pledged to back him should he run for reelection. Emanuel, who represents the Northwest side of Chicago in Illinois’ 5th Congressional District, and serves as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, told the City Club of Chicago that Daley has made Chicago a wonderful city to live in, and is cleaning up the corruption in his office that happened as a result of “outsourcing” certain political operations.

Emanuel’s unwavering support of Daley may indeed be the result of his carefully weighing Daley’s successes against the corruption that happened under his watch. He wouldn’t be alone--Chicagoist hears several of our fellow citizens say that they like what Daley does for the city, and that corruption is just a part of politics, especially Chicago politics.

Or, it could be that Emanuel is returning a favor. In Emanuel’s first Congressional race in 2002, which he won by a resounding margin, Daley “outsourced” some political work for Emanuel’s campaign.

They say outsourcing is the wave of the future. Maybe the mayor was just ahead of the times.

Thanks, Amy!