Rahmses Wins

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

Editorial: A new Chicago hands reins to Rahm

For the first time in 22 years, the words Mayor and Daley are no longer inextricably linked.

In a remarkable victory Tuesday, Rahm Emanuel trounced five opponents. Emanuel won 55 percent of the votes, besting even the most pie-in-the-sky projections.

Emanuel is now mayor-elect, poised to take over a dramatically different city from the one Daley first encountered as mayor in 1989.

Though a fast and furious five-month sprint, this campaign offered a real education. A few nuggets, then, about what we learned about Chicago, circa 2011:
...

The piggy bank is empty

If you didn’t know it before the campaign, most Chicagoans are now aware, at least vaguely, that Chicago city government is broke.

With a deficit approaching $700 million, austerity is the new reality in Chicago. Daley staved off dramatic cuts with one-time fixes, but that no longer cuts it. For Daley, being mayor was mostly about more — new buildings, new programs, new spending.

Those days are now officially over.

Hate to break it to the Sun-Times, but predicting Rahm would come in in the mid-50s was hardly "pie-in-the-sky". Among friends, I wagered that Rahm would end up with either 46% or 54%, and I was not exactly alone.

Everyone I know was of the same two minds: the former, high-but-not-enough-to-win-number comes in if Chicago decided it was enjoying its political carnival and wanted to keep the fun going a bit longer, and the latter, we-welcome-our-new-Insider-Overlords-number if Chicago is the kind of place where the combination of mountains of cash, gigadaleys of clout and the rumored deployment of Carol Moseley Braun as a patsy to frag any possibility of a genuine Progressive coalition would prove unstoppably successful.

And as anyone from the home of the Chicago Cubs should have learned long ago, when it comes to baseball and politics, betting with your heart is a mug's game.

From the Chicago News Cooperative:

Chico Aide: Rahm Campaign Like `Hurricane’
By DAN MIHALOPOULOS
February 23, 2011

“Running against Rahm felt like waking up every morning and running face-first into a gale-force hurricane,” said Ken Snyder, media strategist for Chico’s campaign. “He had $13 million. He had two beloved presidents. He had Hollywood stars. He had the tacit support of [retiring Mayor Richard M. Daley]. Not mention a hell of a resume.”

But Snyder told the Chicago News Cooperative that Emanuel also benefited from the weak showing of Carol Moseley Braun. Chico aides had hoped Braun would garner enough black support to force a run-off — but not enough votes to finish ahead of Chico and in second place.

“Carol’s campaign was a shipwreck of a candidacy,” Snyder said.
...

And so now the Age of Rahmses begins...

Chicago: I could never love you.

Rahmses: Does that matter? You will be mine. You will come to me whenever I call you,and I will enjoy that very much. Whether you enjoy it or not is your own affair. But I think you will...

Chicago: You will let DeValle live?

Rahmses: I will not make him a martyr for you to cherish. No phantom will come between you and me in the night. Yes, I will let him live. From where I send him there is no return.

Rahmses: [turning to DeValle] Here is your king's scepter, and here is your kingdom, with the scorpion, the cobra, the IVI-IPO and some obscure City College Working Group for, say, Tuition Reimbursement Reform for subjects. Free them if you will. Leave Chicago to me.

Rahmses: Now somebody bring me my official City of Chicago Neck Stabbin' Pencil and let's get it on, bitches!

So it was written.
So it will be done.

Meanwhile, for those in search of a cheap laugh on this cold night, delight yourself in the knowledge that somewhere Michelle "Sack 'o Wingnut Bile" Malkin is apparently busying herself picking a twitterfight

with the most famous fake Rahm Emanuel in the Universe.