I suspect that Grove is not a Chicago-based writer, nor did he drive down Touhy Avenue yesterday on the North Side and see the many axle-breaking potholes that have been there for at least two weeks. Surely Grove knows about Chicago's out-of-control murder rate. Well maybe he doesn't, because he neglects to mention it in his piece.
Chicago is corrupt and yes, Rahm appears to be trying to fight it. But last week the City Council--which on average sees one of its members 'graduate' to prison every 15 months--tabled a weak ethics reform bill. At least for now, Emanuel can't claim to be the man who cleaned up Chicago. While Rahm is taking on the radical Chicago Teachers Union, his effort to bolster school choice with charter schools is tainted with crony capitalism.
Here's another reason Rahm Emanuel won't be president. For the most part, being a big city mayor is a public office career killer. A few move on to higher office--Sen. Dianne Feinstein used to be mayor of San Francisco, Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell was mayor of Philadelphia, and John Hickenlooper moved his desk from Denver's Civic Center a few blocks over to the state capitol--but the entrenched corruption and the power of Big Labor (a redundancy, yes) in cities has made the job of big city mayor an intractable one.
In my lifetime the only presidential candidate with "big city mayor" on his resume to mount a serious run for the presidency was a Republican who shook up City Hall--former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani.
But he didn't do too well.
Rahm says he won't run if Hillary Clinton throws her hat in the 2016 ring.
I don't think he's going to run at all.
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