Is Chicago Crazy Enough To Elect Bill Daley, The Rahm Candidate?

When you go to the polls Feb. 26 remember: Bill Daley is Rahm Emanuel. That might sound like a slur, but I don’t mean it that way. There’s just no denying that Daley has exposed himself as the Rahm-candidate.

In the waning days of Chicago’s wide-open mayoral race, Daley has secured backing from many of the same power brokers, editorial boards and rich guys who helped embolden Emanuel's political failure to unite Chicago, a city even more starkly divided by race and economic class than before he was elected.

There were early signs Emanuel favored Daley to replace him as Chicago's boss. Conspiracy-minded folks say it started with a wink from Rahm — a vague prediction he made after deciding not to run for a third term when he said our city's “next leader” hadn’t entered the race. Daley threw his hat in the ring less than two weeks later.

Personally, I noticed that Daley softened on Emanuel – the guy he told the Sun-Times should "put on the big boy pants" and quit blaming his brother, former Mayor Richard M. Daley, for the city's financial troubles — during an interview last month. That's when Daley’s campaign spokesman asked me not to print Daley’s rather mild criticism of Rahm. Daley called Emanuel “in-your-face” and “pretty aggressive.” Daley even praised the lame-duck mayor during our chat.

“Am I gonna go in there to blow up the building and say everything Mayor Emanuel did was bad? No, I'm not going to do that because he has done some good things,” Daley said.

That was around the time that Daley and Emanuel were spotted together at a fundraiser for 11th Ward Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson — Daley's nephew and one of two dozen ward bosses who received a $20,000 campaign check from Emanuel. Daley’s spokesman told me the candidate and the mayor he wants to replace are “friendly.”

“Friendly” might be the ultimate understatement for Daley's relationship to Emanuel. It's not just that their resumes are similar. Their political lives have been interwoven since the '80s.

Emanuel got his start in politics in Richard M. Daley’s mayoral administration back when Bill Daley served in an unofficial capacity as older brother’s so-called “phantom brain.”

Bill Daley was President Bill Clinton’s commerce secretary. He got rich in the banking industry after leaving the White House.

Emanuel served as Clinton’s special adviser. He got rich during a short stint in the world of investment banking in his post-White House career.

Rahm did a stint in Congress while Bill Daley built his net worth to as much as $47 million working as a banker and corporate CEO.

Then, Emanuel worked as President Barack Obama's chief of staff until 2010, when he resigned, and successfully campaigned to replace Bill Daley’s brother as mayor.

Bill Daley replaced Emanuel as chief of staff in the Obama White House. He later resigned to work for a small hedge fund, where he stopped wearing a tie and probably made another small fortune.

In 2015, when Emanuel found himself in a mayoral runoff election against Chuy Garcia, Daley Machine loyalists saved him by getting out the vote with an aggressive ground game in the mostly white, solidly middle-class wards that are home to generations of city workers.

Now, Bill Daley finds himself in an up-for-grabs battle to make the mayoral runoff for a shot at replacing Emanuel as mayor.

And look what's happening in the final throes of this historic campaign: Emanuel’s single-biggest fundraiser and political benefactor — billionaire Ken Griffin — donated $1 million to help fund Daley’s last big campaign push.

The Chicago Tribune and Crain’s Chicago Business, which twice endorsed Emanuel for mayor, recently dubbed Bill Daley as their preferred candidate.

Those publications echo a prevailing opinion among members and associates of Chicago’s “Green Party” — green as in big-money: Our city needs a mayor with clout, connections to corporate America and, to quote the Tribune editorial board, someone who “understands why Chicago matters globally.”

Like Rahm, Bill Daley, wants Chicagoans to forget the past and look forward.

It's the same plea Mayor Emanuel made to Chicagoans after a Cook County judge forced him to release video of officer Jason Van Dyke firing all 16 bullets in his gun at Laquan McDonald until the black teenager was dead.

As Emanuel prepares to move on from elected office, he's planning to rewrite his legacy in a book called, "Why Mayors Rule The World." He doesn’t want you to remember that his administration paid $5 million in hush money in hopes of keeping that video a secret. He’d prefer that you forget his promise to “Build a New Chicago” left out neighborhoods that aren’t adjacent to the rich part of town.

As Bill Daley campaigns for mayor, he doesn’t want you to remember the scandals, convictions and policy decisions associated with the brand of politics that made his family name either famous and infamous, depending on your point of view, and contributed to the racial and economic divides in our city which only widened under Emanuel's leadership.

Albert Einstein said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different result.”

A vote for Bill Daley is a vote for Rahm.

Well, Chicago. Are you crazy?

See Also:

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• Mendoza Rapid-Fire Tweets Sling Mud On Clout Candidates, Herself
• Chicago Mayoral Race Is Absurd And Nightmare If You Don't Wake Up
• Did Rahm's Failure, Solis' FBI Wire Make Chicago GOP Relevant?
• Mayoral Candidate Susana Mendoza Can't Be Taken Seriously Anymore
• Facts About Pay-To-Play Preckwinkle Help To Voters To Form Opinion
• Chicago Needs To Elect Bunch Of Snitches To Kill Code Of Silence
• Rahm's Podcast Isn't Practice For TV Gig; He Stinks On TV (VIDEO)
• Are You For 'Cockroaches' Or Reformers In Chicago Mayoral Race?
• Cash Connects 'Independent' Preckwinkle To 'Good Ol' Boys Club'
• Hmm, Mayor Candidate Bill Daley Doesn't Want To Dis Rahm Anymore

Mark Konkol, recipient of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting and Emmy-nominated producer, was a producer, writer and narrator for the Chicagoland series on CNN.

Photo credit: Associated Press file