Former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel on Sunday announced his bid to become mayor of Chicago, according to a video message posted on his Web site.
Emanuel, who aims to become the first Jewish mayor of the Windy City, described his upbringing in Chicago, where he was born to an Israeli immigrant father, and vowed to tackle gang violence and economic woes.
“To be the city we want to be, we can’t have gangbangers taking the lives of our schoolchildren,” he said. “And to be the city we want to be, we can no longer accept -business-as-usual. In attacking our budget deficit, there must be no sacred cows.”
PHOTO: REUTERS
“So as I prepare to run for mayor, I’m going to spend the next few weeks visiting our neighborhoods — at grocery stores, L Stops, bowling alleys and hot dog stands,” he said. “I’m calling this the ‘Tell It Like It Is’ tour because I want to hear from you — in blunt Chicago terms — what you think about our city and how the next mayor and you can make it better.”
Emanuel urged all sectors of society to get involved and pledged tough leadership for the city.
“We need leadership that’s tough enough to say no when it needs to be said and smart enough to know what government should do, and also what it can’t do,” he said. “There’s another thing we’ve learned over the years: To keep Chicago moving forward, every community must participate. This city belongs to all of us and every person has a role in building its future.”
The mayor’s office has been held for the past 21 years by Richard M. Daley. His father Richard J. Daley ruled the city from 1955 until 1976.
Emanuel is a shrewd politician and a former fundraiser for the younger Daley, who announced on Sept. 7 he would not seek a seventh term.
Emanuel served as a senior advisor to former US president Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1999.
He later was elected in 2002 to the US House of Representatives from the district that encompasses a slice of Chicago and a handful of suburbs, then moved his family to Washington after resigning from Congress in 2008 to become US President Barack Obama’s chief of staff.
He is expected to face at least 20 other contenders for the job of mayor of the third-largest US city and will need to gain the support of labor and a significant portion of the African-American and Hispanic vote.
The primary is scheduled for Feb. 22.
Obama on Friday gave Emanuel’s campaign a major boost by announcing the departure of his “incomparable” political enforcer and long-time friend at a White House press conference.
“It is fair to say that we could not have accomplished what we’ve accomplished without Rahm’s leadership,” Obama said.
Obama could not resist poking fun at Emanuel’s reputation as a rare and blunt-spoken political bruiser.
“A couple of years ago ... I pointed out that Rahm, when he was a kid, had lost part of his finger in an accident, and it was his middle finger, so it rendered him mute for a while,” Obama joked.
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