Chicago mayor to retire; Emanuel expected to run

WASHINGTON – White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has made no secret of his desire to run for mayor of Chicago one day, saying as recently as April that becoming chief executive of his hometown had “always been an aspiration.”

Suddenly, he has his chance.

With the surprise announcement Tuesday that Chicago Mayor Richard Daley will not run for a seventh term, speculation in Washington quickly turned to whether Emanuel will seek the job. White House officials spent the afternoon informally speculating about the odds that Emanuel might leave – and pondering who would replace him if he did.

Almost universally, political strategists said they expected Emanuel, a former Illinois congressman, to seize the opening.

“I’d be shocked if he didn’t run,” a senior White House official said.

Daley, 68, announced his retirement on the steps of City Hall, taking even some of his closest allies by surprise. Although his approval ratings have slipped over the past year, Daley said it was a “personal decision” made after more than two decades as Chicago mayor, a tenure that will surpass even that of his father, who was mayor from 1955 to 1976.

“It’s time for Chicago to move on,” Daley said. “I’ve given it my all.”

A return to Chicago would bring Emanuel, 50, full circle to the city where he stuffed political pamphlets into mailboxes as a high-schooler and where his mother was a political activist. Emanuel rose to national prominence as the chief fundraiser for Daley’s first mayoral campaign in 1989, working alongside another future architect of the Obama presidency, David Axelrod.

Speaking with reporters Tuesday, Axelrod said that he and Emanuel were both “a little stunned” to learn of Daley’s retirement, adding that they had both “strongly assumed” he would run for another term in 2011.

“So we’re just absorbing that news,” Axelrod said. As for Emanuel, Axelrod said that he “has got a lot on his plate right now.”

The list of possible successors as chief of staff is lengthy and includes senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, deputy national security adviser Thomas Donilon, senior adviser Pete Rouse and Obama’s head of legislative affairs, Phil Schiliro. Former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe is a possible contender, as are former Senate majority leader Thomas Daschle and former Bill Clinton chief of staff John Podesta.