Rahm's pollster asking about a run for mayor (activates Chicago Swamp Machine)

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel has commissioned his longtime pollster, Stanley Greenberg, to survey Chicagoans about a potential mayoral bid. Meanwhile, former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun will accept a mayoral "draft" at a Monday news conference in Chicago.

Sources told me that polling calls for Emanuel were being made over the weekend and that Emanuel has activated his Chicago network of pals to reach out to political figures in Chicago on his behalf. While Emanuel backed out of a Chicago visit last weekend, I'm told he will be in Chicago by the end of the month.

Moseley Braun -- a one-term senator, New Zealand ambassador, Cook County recorder of deeds and state representative who runs an organic food company in Chicago -- has been out of politics since she ran for president in 2004. She was the state's first female and African-American senator.

On Monday, I found Kathy Posner, a Chicago civic leader, who was called by Emanuel's pollster on Saturday.

She told me the 20-minute survey asked about Emanuel; Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd); David Hoffman, the former city inspector general who lost a Democratic Senate primary bid; Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart and state Sen. James Meeks.

Posner said there was a query about Daley's job rating and what city issues are important: jobs, police, etc.

After running through some positives about Emanuel -- his congressional career, his work as Obama's chief of staff -- Emanuel tested some potential negatives: his onetime friendship with former Gov. Rod Blagojevich and how Emanuel made millions as an investment banker with City Hall connections. There was also a question about Emanuel and convicted political fixer Tony Rezko.

Obama last week praised Emanuel -- the president said he would make an excellent mayor -- but that won't necessarily translate into helping Emanuel win the crucial Chicago African-American vote.

Ironically, working for the nation's first black president means almost nothing to the political powerbrokers in the African-American community who are exploring whether they can coalesce around one consensus African-American candidate.

Racial and ethnic politics -- and crosstown rivalries -- are still very much in play in this early stage.

Emanuel already knows one thing without taking a poll: A week has passed and no one in his old congressional district, a potential base, has led a call to draft him.

While pondering a decision to run, Emanuel, Moseley Braun and the others have two calculations to make: how to survive the Feb. 22 nonpartisan primary and then how to form the coalitions that will be needed to win the April 5 run-off.

Senior adviser Valerie Jarrett said she has no interest in replacing Emanuel if he leaves the White House. On the couch Monday with the women of ABC's "The View," Jarrett was pressed several times by Barbara Walters about her interest in replacing Emanuel.

"I love my job, and I'm so fortunate, really, to have the responsibilities that I enjoy that take me out and engage me every single day with people," Jarrett said.

Walters tried again for an answer. On her third try, Jarrett said, "No -- I'm just saying, I want to do what I'm doing. I don't want to change jobs. I love my job."

Politico reported that Progressives (gag), a major voting bloc in Chicago elections, took Rahm to task for the decision to drop the so-called public option from this year's health care overhaul, even though the votes weren't there for the provision.

Adam Green, head of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, said that Emanuel is a “cancer on the Democratic Party” — a sign that liberals may try to take out their anger on Emanuel over the health care bill by coming after him in Chicago.

In addition to uncertainty about the field and his testy relationships with important hyphenated constituencies, Emanuel will have a challenge in making himself more familiar to Chicagoans outside the district he represented in the House as a four-time Congressman.

Another big question for Emanuel is whether his past national clashes with these key groups will cost him at the local level.

MANIFESTATIONS OF RAHM:
Balletomane, Israeli Defense Force volunteer, Chicago operator, Clinton advisor/fund-raiser, multi-millionaire investment banker, ran a political action committee laughingly called "Our Common Values PAC," 6-term Congressman financed by Wall Street, founded The Rahm Emanuel and Amy Rule Charitable Trust tax dodge that exepmpted him from Chicago property taxes, Clinton's Fannie Mae appointee/looter, Ohaha's COS.

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THINGS WE DO NOT KNOW ABOUT RAHM Did Wall Street Rahm reveal all of his ties to financial institutions involved in Obama's trillion dollar federal bailout of financials?

THINGS WE KNOW ABOUT RAHM Wonder Boy Rahm became a multi-millioniare overnight. He resigned as advisor to Bill Clinton in 1998, to become an investment banker with Wasserstein Perella and worked there until 2002. In 1999, Rahm became managing director at the Chicago office. According to Congressional disclosure statements, Rahm Emanuel made $16.2 million at Wasserstein Perella. Rahm worked on eight deals, including the acquisition by Commonwealth Edison of Peco Energy and the purchase by GTCR Golder Rauner of the SecurityLink home security unit from SBC.

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BACKSTORY January 2007 USA Today reported on Emanuel and his wife’s tax-exempt "foundation" (operated out of their Chicago residence). The tax-exempt "Rahm Emanuel and Amy Rule Charitable Trust" was formed in 2002, when the 4-term Chicagoan was first elected to Congress. Rahm and his wife, Amy Rule (a convert to Judaism), are its only donors.

At one point the Emanuels did not pay real estate taxes b/c their residence is the tax-exempt foundation's office. According to the Cook County Assessor’s website multi-millionaire Rahm Emanuel's Chicago home doesn’t exist. There seems to be no public record of Emanuel ever paying property taxes on this home.

The Cook County Assessor’s and Cook County Treasurer’s online records indicate Emanuel’s neighbors pay between $3,500-$7,000 annually. Illinois Review investigative reporters was unable to locate any evidence that Emanuel--- a multi-millionaire---was paying taxes.

NOTE that Chicago politicians collude with the Tax Collector to "delist" their property......that's the Chicago MO to protect pols from paying taxes.

This same Chicago tax assessor that finagled Rahm's taxes, once carried the home of amnesty whore Cong Luis Guiterrez (D-Ill) (a former cab driver now in our Congress) on the tax rolls as a "vacant lot" and argued---- after the story became public----that Guiterrez should not be penalized for a "clerical error" ....

This came after Guiterrez paid minimal taxes for years and years...... b/c Guiterrez' home was listed as a vacant lot. NOTE that Gutierrez is also angling to be mayor.

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REFERENCE 4-term Congressman Rahm was beatified as the man who masterminded the Congress and WH Dem takeover. Rahm ran the "Our Common Values PAC" in 2005 and chaired the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee 2006-07. Rahm had Dems winning in solid Republican districts running as "true believers." Maoist Ohaha won saying things like, "I want to be another Reagan."

THE DEM TAKEOVER : In the 2006-08 congressional elections, Rahm Emanuel fielded candidates who were cued to babble in local conservative parlance. Similarly, Rahm and Axelrod catapaulted Barack Obama to national prominence by stressing commonalities of Blue and Red America (not how they differed). Maoist Anita Dunn's PR strategy was not to let the press interview Obama so that his calculated long-distance attacks on "failed Bush policies" left it ambiguous whether he was objecting to Republican ideology or incompetence.

No one was allowed to know Obama was an abortion worshipper, and that as a Chicago pol, Obama refused to let a law pass that protected babies born alive from abortions.....Maoist Obama said he was "afraid" banning P/B abortion would infringe on women's "rights" and doctor's "rights." Obama as a Columbia undergraduate was parroting leftist criticisms of Ronald Reagan. But when he ran in 2008, his handlers cued Maoist Obama to dupe voters......saying things like "I want to be another Reagan."

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