“He’s a sharp guy that wouldn’t have left D. C. to throw his hat into the mayoral ring so confidently if he and the best lawyers in the land hadn’t checked things out way beforehand.”
He is cunning and sly, but not overly bright. Otherwise, he would not have rented out his house and failed to establish another residence to maintain his eligibility to run for office. Remember, during his conversations with Rod Blagojevich regarding the vacant Obama seat in the US Senate (now to be occupied by a liberal Republican) Emanuel also suggested that Blagojevich could appoint an “interim” Congressman to warm Emanuel’s seat in the US House of Representatives until he was ready to return to the chamber (in a bid to fulfill his ambition to become the Speaker of the House). That proposal blew up in Rahm’s face because the Illinois governor does not have the power to make appointments to fill Congressional vacancies — there have to be special elections. When the special election was held, Rahm’s preferred candidate lost the nomination. Now, someone else has the seat.
Rahm is going to lawyer up to the maximum, but the judges are going to have to turn somersaults to render the ruling that he desires. Decades of existing case precedents will have to be tossed or distinguished for Emanuel to prevail.
If he is so intelligent, how did he get himself into the middle of this fiasco?
Remember, Rahm coined the phrase "never let a good crisis go to waste."
He will turn this "fiasco" into lemonade. If there's no chaos or fiascos, slippery operatives like Emanuel will create one. At any rate, there's no doubt he's getting reams of publicity out of the residency snag.
But to cut to the real chase, my take on the whole thing is this....Obama looks forward to his presidential bid in two years. He wants the Chicago machine, meaning the efficient ward organization and the lucrative business/big money donor list, to be under the control of the new mayor, whoever it will be.
So he orders Rahm to exit D.C. and run for mayor. If Rahm wins, so does Obama. If one of the more powerful blacks wins, so does Obama.
Win, win situation for the Big Enchilada in the White House.
Should things go south for Rahm, he'll land on his feet....his type always does. No one will ever have to hold a tag day for Rahm Emanuel.
Leni