With rampant corruption in even how crime statistics are recorded, Polls show only 29% would vote for Rahm Emanuel for mayor

Rahm Emanuel's re-election effort isn't looking so hot.  It could very likely derail his well-known ambitions of becoming governor and then president.  From the Chicago Sun-Times:

Only one in five Chicago voters credit Mayor Rahm Emanuel with doing a better job of running the city than Richard M. Daley did, and only 29 percent would support him if the mayoral election were held today.
Those are the results of a new poll conducted for Early & Often, the Chicago Sun-Times’ political portal. The telephone survey of 511 registered Chicago voters who said they were “very likely” to go to the polls on Feb. 24 was conducted Wednesday by the firm of McKeon & Associates.
“Right now, Rahm is not connecting. If he doesn’t do that, he’s gonna lose,” McKeon said. . . .

Rahm Emanuel says the residency rules for running for office be damned if they don't work for him

Apparently there is an exception in the residency law if the president gives you a job offer.

"Fundamentally, when a president asks you to serve the country as his chief of staff, you do it," Emanuel said. “Fundamentally, when a president asks you to serve the country as his chief of staff, that counts as part of serving your country," Emanuel said. "I have no doubt that in the end we will prevail at this effort. As my father always used to say, nothing is ever easy in life. This is just one turn in the road.

“The Supreme Court has an obligation -- not an obligation -- to hear the case, to make a decision quickly, so both not only voters have a clarity they need, but there’s a clarity to the issues we are discussing in front of the voters as it relates to the challenges that we have as a city for our future," Emanuel said. . . .

The law isn't as important as what Emanuel decides that the end goal should be. You know that there is a reason why there are residency requirements.

"I do believe that the people of the city of Chicago deserve the right to make a decision on who they want to be their next mayor,” Emanuel said. . . .

The judges were pretty clear and what they say seems obvious.

The judges panel said it had concluded that Emanuel “neither meets the Municipal Code’s requirement that he have ‘resided in’ Chicago for the year preceding the election in which he seeks to participate nor falls within any exception to the requirement.” . . .

Rahm Emanuel on gun control

Unfortunately, it looks as if Emanuel will pick right up where Daley has left off.

A note on the person making the residency decision for Rahm Emanuel in Chicago's Mayorial race

John Fund has this in the WSJ Political Diary. The most interesting point that I had missed was that the hearing officer is a conservative Republican. Fund might also have mentioned that Emanuel only amended his return after Daley announced that he wasn't running for re-election.

. . . Mr. [Rahm] Emanuel is being challenged by citizens who say his candidacy runs afoul of a law requiring the mayor to have been a resident of the city for a year prior to winning election. Mr. Emanuel, who has lived in Washington, D.C., for the past two years while working at the White House, claims the law doesn't apply because he always intended to resettle in Chicago and left some boxes stored in the Chicago home that he rented out when he moved away.

At a raucous hearing last week, Mr. Emanuel was confronted with his 2009 Illinois state income tax return, on which he listed his residency status as "part-time." He said that he had made a mistake and amended the return, even though he had read and signed the original document.

The initial decision on whether Mr. Emanuel is eligible for the ballot will be made by hearing officer Joe Morris, a distinguished Chicago attorney and staunch conservative. Mr. Morris has been praised by all sides for his fairness during the hearing. He said that both sides should trust him because "a Republican has no dog in the fight." . . .

Despite Obama campaign's denials, it turns out that his people did push for Valerie Jarrett to fill Senate seat

The Chicago Sun-Times has the story here:

President-elect Barack Obama's incoming chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, was pushing for Obama's successor just days after the Nov. 4 election, sources told the Chicago Sun-Times.

Emanuel privately urged Gov. Blagojevich's administration to appoint Obama confidante Valerie Jarrett, and the Sun-Times learned Tuesday that he also pressed that it be done by a certain deadline.

Jarrett was initially interested in the U.S. Senate post before Obama tapped her to be a White House senior adviser, sources say.

The disclosure comes days after Obama's camp downplayed Jarrett's interest in the post. . . . .