Mayor Rahm Emanuel's political career is imploding with meteoric rapidity. The consensus among Chicago Democratic politicians is that he'll be gone by the end of 2016.
I'd say the line is 2-1 that Emanuel will be gone by July 1, 10-1 that he will be the ex-mayor by Oct. 1, and 100-1 that he will not complete his current term, which will end in April of 2019. Those are better money-making odds than plunking down cash on the Chicago Cubs' 2016 pennant-winning chances.
There are four stages of political downfall, (1) Rodney Dangerfield, (2) Watergate, (3) Richard Nixon and (4) King Lear.
Emanuel is at the Rodney Dangerfield stage. He gets no respect. The members of the City Council, subservient under Emanuel's iron fist in the pre-Laquan McDonald era, sense a power vacuum. The council is factionalizing along racial, ideological, geographic and chronological lines, but the common core is this that no alderman facing re-election in 2019 wants to be tainted as pro-Emanuel or in any way supportive of him.
Routine matters, such as gaining council approval of $2.35 billion in bonding authority, have unmasked the mayor's political impotence. On Jan. 13 the council 40-4 voted to slash $1.25 in general obligation bonds to $650 million. When the 2016 budget was approved, the vote was 34-16; that means that 24 more aldermen are no longer mayoral flunkies. The narrative for 2019 is quickly developing: "Blame it on Rahm." Like the buffoonish prison sergeant in the old "Hogan's Heroes" TV show, "I know nothing" will be their mantra.
The aldermen, all alpha males and females, are predators, quick to sniff weakness. One of them will be the next mayor, and they know it. Either Brendan Reilly (42nd) or Pat O'Connor (40th) will be the acting mayor.
Emanuel's current firewall consists of two people, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. The mayor worked in the Clinton and Obama White House, he is tapped into the same donor base, and he is part of their social circle. Emanuel learned from the master, Bill Clinton, the arts of dissembling, stonewalling and prevaricating. Yet, in the firestorm of Chicago's alleged police misconduct, Obama and Clinton are mum. Nary a negative word about good old Rahm.
If Chicago had a Republican mayor, every Democrat in America would be apoplectic with outrage, indignant and righteous with demands for resignation and, perhaps, even indictment. Such is the hypocrisy of the liberals. Emanuel gets a pass -- so far. He's on our side, they rationalize. Yet there are cracks in the proverbial dam. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont socialist who is making serious strides against Hillary Clinton in Iowa and New Hampshire, weighed in against the Chicago police, and Salon, a left-wing online magazine, has been ripping Emanuel as a Clinton-style political opportunist. The magazine portrays him as an "enabler," meaning a politician so desperate to stay in office and aggrandize power and so needy of white votes that he ignores the city's "police culture" and colludes to conceal any abuses.
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