RAHM GOES FOR TWO – AT 9:41 A.M. ET:  No one ever called Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel "America's mayor," or even Chicago's mayor.  He's more like the machine's mayor or Obama's mayor.  Today he goes for a second mayoral term in a city that remains in deep trouble.  From Andrew Malcom at IBD: 

Legend holds that Chicago's mayoral elections are held at this time of the winter every four years because no one in their right mind would venture outside to the polls unless they were loyal Democrat machine voters whose precinct captains were taking attendance.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel may be the beneficiary of that likely apocryphal story today as for some reason he seeks a second term atop the nation's third-largest city with its crumbling infrastructure, high taxes, corruption, poorly performing schools, unbearable pension costs and gun violence.

The former machine go-fer, Clinton money collector, House member, pal of imprisoned ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich and Obama chief of staff faces a couple of no-names and Cook County Commissioner Jesus Chuy Garcia.

In Chicago's rigged political system that produced Barack Obama and his sidekick Valerie Jarrett, none of them should have a snowball's-chance-in-Hawaii of winning. And they don't. However, it is possible if Hispanics turn out big-time today that Garcia could hold Emanuel's vote total below the 50%-plus one he needs to avoid a two-man runoff on April 7.

Then, a stream of Emanuel's notorious profanity would likely be heard as far away as Springfield. In 2011, Emanuel avoided a runoff, earning 55% of the vote.

A coronation delay this time would be embarrassing for the pugnacious 55-year-old Emanuel, the 55th mayor, and the first Jewish one, in the long, sordid political history of Chicago, which appropriately enough is an Indian word for a smelly wild onion once found in the area.

Taking a page from Obama's smearing playbook in 2012, Emanuel has been going after the under-funded Garcia for months with much of the incumbent's $15 million cash from a relatively small circle of wealthy donors. Emanuel knows money, having been Bill Clinton's first finance chair.

COMMENT:  As even the BBC points out today, the election has national and international repercussions.  Hillary needs Rahm Emanuel in the mayor's chair to help her win Illinois in 2016.  And winning Illinois, as we've learned from history, often involves creative interpretation of voting laws and artistic use of numbers.  We revere those who do it well.

February 24, 2015