Mayor Rahm? 'I would like to run' 
 
 WASHINGTON -- White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, who in January tried to quash stories about a future Chicago mayoral bid, on Monday put his interest in City Hall on the record: "One day I would like to run for mayor of the city of Chicago." 
 
 Emanuel made his comment on the ''Charlie Rose'' show, taped in Manhattan. 
 
 After damping talk about a mayoral run in January, Rose resurrected the issue when he asked Emanuel what other government jobs he would be interested in if he left the White House. 
 
 "I hope Mayor Daley seeks re-election. I will work and support him if he seeks re-election," said Emanuel, 50. "But if Mayor Daley doesn't, one day I would like to run for mayor of the City of Chicago. That's always been an aspiration of mine even when I was in the House of Representatives." 
 
 Mayor Daley -- who will be 68 on Saturday, in his 20th year overseeing City Hall -- has not yet made an announcement about running for another term. The mayoral election is next February, and Daley is expected to seek re-election. 
 
 Emanuel is trying to set the stage as his logical successor. Though he would have tremendous fund-raising ability, Emanuel would also have some competition. 
 
 "That makes him one of many who aspire to the same goal. It is a laudable aspiration," Daley spokeswoman Jackie Heard said Monday. 
 
 Emanuel has pledged to serve as President Obama's chief of staff to the end of the year, and has signaled that could be extended if Obama asked him. Emanuel moved his family -- wife Amy and three children -- to Washington last year and enrolled his kids in local schools. 
 
 Emanuel gave up a safe House seat -- and a path to one day possibly being House speaker -- when Obama tapped him for chief of staff. 
 
 Gossip about Emanuel's future was first triggered Jan. 5 when Washington Post columnist Sally Quinn wrote that "Emanuel is said to have told people that the chief-of-staff role is an 18-month job and that he is considering a run for mayor of Chicago." ||||| View more news videos at: http://www.nbcchicago.com/video. 
 
 Charlie Rose: Is there any other job in government you'd like to have? 
 
 Rahm Emanuel: In government? 
 
 Charlie Rose: In government. 
 
 Rahm Emanuel: Yeah. 
 
 Charlie Rose: What? 
 
 Rahm Emanuel: Well, I mean, it's no secret -- 
 
 Charlie Rose: That you want to be speaker of the house. 
 
 Rahm Emanuel: Well, that's over. No, I would one day -- first of all, let me say it this way, I hope Mayor Daley seeks reelection. I will work and support him if he seeks reelection. But if Mayor Daley doesn't, one day I would like to run for mayor of the City of Chicago. That's always been an aspiration of mine even when I was in the House of Representatives. 
 
 Charlie Rose: Mayor of Chicago. 
 
 Rahm Emanuel: Yeah, fact I said the one thing if you ask me what I miss, I miss the contact with constituents. You know, I miss being in the -- when you were running the office, that touch with people. I used to do as you know I developed this thing called Congress on Your Corner where I used to stand in the grocery stores with a table of constituent service, and just greet people. And you learned a lot. And one of the best pieces of legislation I introduced was the Elderly Justice Act, came from a lady who talked to me at a grocery store about what happened to her father in a nursing home, and the way I found out that the law on the books was no real federal bill that dealt with seniors. And that's a -- you know, not all stories are like that. I helped a small business get a loan that expanded a tubing company. I miss that. I mean, I love what I'm doing. I find great passion in it because I work for a great president with a breadth of issues that has -- if you're in public policy at a period of time in history that's important, one day I'll go back to elected office and say I've enjoyed it, I enjoyed that process. 
 
 Charlie Rose: So rather than being a member of the Cabinet, if you left the chief of staff job you'd more likely want to go -- ||||| Even the chief of staff to the first U.S. president from Chicago may face challenges in trying to win the top job in a city where someone named Daley has ruled for 42 of the past 55 years. 
 
 Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley’s announcement yesterday that he wouldn’t seek a seventh term altered the political landscape in Illinois in a shake-up that may stretch to Washington. 
 
 While White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, 50, has said he is interested in the job, he would enter the race with baggage in Chicago, where he sharpened his political elbows as a Daley confidant and then a congressman. 
 
 “I don’t think there is such a thing as frontrunner,” said JPMorgan Chase & Co. Midwest Chairman William Daley, the mayor’s brother, a former U.S. commerce secretary and a possible contender. 
 
 Other political experts agree that the opening is likely to attract a large number of candidates and that Emanuel, who still owns a home in the city, wouldn’t have the field to himself. 
 
 “He’s an opportunist, but he’s got his work cut out for him,” said John McCarron, an urban affairs writer and adjunct professor at DePaul University in Chicago. 
 
 If he runs, Emanuel is likely to face questions about help he received from a Daley patronage army to win a congressional seat in 2002 and conversations he had with former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich about who should be picked to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President Barack Obama. 
 
 Long Contender List 
 
 Radio and television stations in Chicago were abuzz almost immediately after Daley’s announcement with speculation about who besides Emanuel might run, with names ranging from aldermen to Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan to congressmen. Nov. 22 is the last day to file nomination papers for the Feb. 22 election. 
 
 “It’s a good thing,” said Alderman Scott Waguespack, who is contemplating a run for mayor. “It will allow someone to come in with a new vision for how an open city should be run.” 
 
 One prominent Chicagoan unlikely to join the long list of contenders is presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett, who once hired Michelle Obama while serving as a top aide to Daley. 
 
 An administration official said he doubted Jarrett would run because she loves her work and the first family too much to leave the White House now. 
 
 Daley Confident 
 
 Daley told reporters at a City Hall news conference today that he had worked hard enough in the job that he was confident he could win re-election. 
 
 “I knew I was not going to lose,” he said. “Don’t say I’m arrogant.” 
 
 Since his announcement, Daley said he had spoken with Obama, Emanuel, former Vice President Al Gore, Oprah Winfrey, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, and David Axelrod, a senior presidential adviser. 
 
 “They all called and just thanked me for 21 years of public service,” he said. “We did not get into politics.” 
 
 Daley said he didn’t plan to endorse anyone in the race and declined to speculate about Emanuel’s possible bid. 
 
 “I think there will be a lot of candidates,” he said. “This is the best job in America.” 
 
 Robert Gibbs, White House press secretary, said members of the administration are aware of Emanuel’s long interest in the mayor’s job and that “something like that doesn’t come around a lot.” 
 
 Emanuel’s Future 
 
 He said he didn’t know whether Emanuel has discussed his plans with the president. 
 
 “I have no doubt that he’ll take some time to think about what he wants to do with his future,” Gibbs told reporters aboard Air Force One as Obama traveled to a speech in Ohio. “But I think his focus right now is on his job as chief of staff.” 
 
 Axelrod, who worked with Emanuel on Daley’s first successful run for mayor in 1989, said he was “a little stunned” by the announcement. 
 
 “We’re just absorbing that news and, you know, the impact that it will have on Chicago, which will be large,” Axelrod said. “You know he’s an enormous presence there, and it’s really grown in wonderful ways under his leadership.” 
 
 Daley, 68, made his announcement at a City Hall news conference yesterday where he was surrounded by his wife, Maggie, and other family members. 
 
 ‘It’s Time’ 
 
 “It’s time,” he said. “It’s time for me. It’s time for Chicago to move on.” 
 
 The son of the late Mayor Richard J. Daley is serving his sixth term as the leader of the third-largest U.S. city by population. The younger Daley’s tenure was marked by his takeover of the city’s school system, the demolition of public housing built during his father’s tenure, corruption scandals and a failed bid to win the 2016 Summer Olympics. 
 
 “Improving Chicago has been the ongoing work of my life,” Daley said. “I loved every minute of it.” 
 
 Speculation about whether he would run again intensified after Chicago was bounced in the first round of last year’s competition for the Olympics. 
 
 More than half of Chicago voters said they didn’t want to see Daley re-elected, according to a Chicago Tribune/WGN-TV poll in July that also found that 37 percent of city voters approved of the job he is doing. 
 
 Former Congressman 
 
 Emanuel, who served three terms in the U.S. House representing part of Chicago’s North Side before being picked by Obama for the White House job, said in April he would be interested in the job if Daley didn’t run. 
 
 “That’s always been an aspiration of mine,” Emanuel said in an interview on PBS television’s “Charlie Rose Show.” “If Mayor Daley doesn’t, one day I would like to run for mayor.” 
 
 Emanuel worked as a senior strategist and chief fundraiser for Daley in his 1989 campaign, before working for the 1992 Bill Clinton presidential campaign and then in the White House. 
 
 Daley may have chosen not to run because of his wife’s almost decade-long fight with breast cancer and the stubborn nature of the city’s challenges, McCarron said. Daley was angered by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June that rendered the city’s 28-year-old handgun ban unenforceable. 
 
 “It had stopped being fun,” McCarron said. “The problems he cared the most about had become intractable.” 
 
 Budget Trouble 
 
 In the past two years in particular, Daley has faced challenges surrounding a weak economy and budget shortfalls that have triggered city worker layoffs and unpaid furlough days. 
 
 Chicago is forecast to have a $654.7 million deficit in a $3.39 billion budget for 2011, according to a July 30 estimate from the city. Daley filled holes in the current $3.12 billion budget by transferring cash reserves from the earlier privatization of parking meters, garages and a tollway. 
 
 In a city where the first Mayor Daley served from 1955 until he suffered a heart attack and died in office in 1976, the son will pass his father’s record for time in office late this year. 
 
 Politicians from Washington to Springfield, Illinois, praised Daley, who has played important roles in both Illinois and national politics. 
 
 “No mayor in America has loved a city more or served a community with greater passion than Rich Daley,” Obama said in a statement. “He helped build Chicago’s image as a world-class city, and leaves a legacy of progress that will be appreciated for generations to come.” 
 
 The Reverend Jesse Jackson, whose son, Representative Jesse Jackson Jr., has been mentioned as a potential mayoral candidate, offered a less upbeat assessment. 
 
 “His strength was downtown urban development, more so than in neighborhood community development,” Jackson said in a statement. “The next mayor will face the burden of huge deficits and a city that is virtually insolvent.” 
 
 To contact the reporters on this story: John McCormick in Chicago at jmccormick16@bloomberg.net
– Rahm Emanuel sounds like he wants out of the Obama administration—and Washington altogether. In an interview with Charlie Rose last night, Emanuel confirmed the rumor that he's considering running for mayor of Chicago in 2011. “I hope Mayor Daley seeks reelection. I will work and support him” if he does,” he said. “But if Mayor Daley doesn't, one day I would like to run for mayor … that's always been an aspiration of mine.” “I want to run for office again,” he said, saying he'd missed the contact he'd had with constituents in the House. But Chicago isn't exactly rolling out the welcome mat. “That makes him one of many who aspire to the same goal,” a Richard Daley spokesman tells the Chicago Sun-Times. But hizzoner's brother, William Daley, was more blunt last month, saying Emanuel would have to “get in line.” You can read a transcript of Emanuel's remarks at the Huffington Post.