WASHINGTON — When Rahm Emanuel was running for Congress on the North Side of Chicago, he would often make calls while he was out shaking hands near the city’s elevated trains, with their distinctive rumbling sending an unmistakable signal that he was standing in his district.
Doug Mills/The New York Times
People who know Rahm Emanuel well believe he is weighing leaving the White House to run for mayor of Chicago.
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Considering Daley’s Exit, With Hope and With Fear (September 9, 2010)
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But is it better than being chief of staff to the first president from Chicago?
To those who know Mr. Emanuel well, the answer is unquestionably yes, which is why they believe he is seriously weighing leaving the White House in the wake of Mayor Richard M. Daley’s abrupt announcement on Tuesday that he intends to step down next year.
“Something like that doesn’t come around a lot,” said Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, doing little to douse speculation about Mr. Emanuel. “It’s no surprise that’s a job he’s been interested in.”
Yet the decision is complicated by the timing of leaving President Obama and the West Wing during one of the most trying periods for the administration. And there is an even bigger question for Mr. Emanuel to consider: Could he win?
In a year in which political races across the country are causing angst for the White House, the vacancy in Chicago’s mayoral race could touch off a dominolike series of personnel changes at the White House.
To keep the issue from becoming a distraction, Mr. Emanuel tried to set the tone on Wednesday by not directly mentioning it during his daily senior staff meetings. But less than two months before the midterm elections, as Democrats try to turn around their political fortunes with a batch of new economic proposals that Mr. Emanuel helped write, several aides said the prospect of a new leader in the corner office of the West Wing was hard for the rest of the staff to ignore.
Mr. Emanuel told friends that he had not yet made a decision about whether to run, but that he would probably make up his mind in the next week or so.
“He has a sense of responsibility to his family, the president and the enterprise,” said David Axelrod, a senior adviser to Mr. Obama, who has worked alongside Mr. Emanuel in Chicago for years. “It’s something that he would really like to do, but it’s not without complications.”
Mr. Emanuel carries significant weight in Washington, surviving a bruising tenure in the Clinton administration and swiftly rising through the Democratic ranks during his six years in Congress. He gave up his hopes of ultimately becoming speaker of the House when he resigned his Congressional seat to be Mr. Obama’s chief of staff.
While Mr. Emanuel has been one of the most active and influential White House chiefs of staff in modern presidential history, there were few signs that the campaign for a rare opening as Chicago mayor would be delayed as he deliberates.
The field of possible candidates seemed to grow by the hour on Wednesday as the news settled in that Mr. Daley truly was stepping aside. For Mr. Emanuel, who gained his first political experiences as a shoe-leather operative in Chicago, the decision over whether to run for mayor is far more complicated after two years in the White House.
In Chicago, a vast patchwork of neighborhoods, every mayoral candidate needs a natural constituency. Several Democratic officials in the city said they were uncertain where Mr. Emanuel’s base of support would come from, beyond his former Congressional district on the city’s Northwest Side.
Many Jewish voters in Chicago, like elsewhere in the country, are furious at Mr. Emanuel over the Obama administration’s policies toward Israel. Several liberal groups inside the Democratic Party, from labor unions to other progressive organizations, blame Mr. Emanuel for playing a role in what they believe as failing to fully capitalize on the party’s majority by not pursuing more liberal policies.
Here in Washington, even before Mr. Emanuel made a decision on whether he intended to leave the White House, a guessing game quickly began over who would succeed him. The potential replacements were divided into categories of temporary and permanent, depending on how quickly he would return to Chicago if he decided to run. Nomination papers must be filed by Nov. 22 for the Feb. 22 election.
Early possibilities included: Thomas E. Donilon, the deputy national security adviser; Ronald A. Klain, the vice president’s chief of staff; and Phil Schiliro, the president’s top liaison to Capitol Hill. If Mr. Emanuel needed to leave quickly, the president could turn to a short-term replacement, including: Pete Rouse, a senior adviser to Mr. Obama who was known as the 101st senator for his long service to Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota; and Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to the president and a confidante of the Obamas.
The departure of Mr. Emanuel, should it take place, would offer a moment for the president to infuse his ranks with fresh energy and ideas. But administration officials said they believed it was unlikely a candidate from outside the West Wing would be selected.
The president has given his blessing for Mr. Emanuel to pursue a campaign if he decides to, aides said, but it was unlikely that Mr. Obama would become involved in the mayor’s race. And if Mr. Emanuel moves forward with a candidacy for City Hall in Chicago, he will do so without the endorsement from Mayor Daley.
“It can be the people of the city of Chicago that will make that decision,” Mr. Daley told reporters, explaining his decision to stay out of the race. “The people of Chicago can make that recommendation.”
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