Rahm Emanuel finally wins the election for the post of Mayor of Chicago onTuesday. The ex White House chief of staff to President Barack Obama has been able to conquer the race by beating five rival candidates and takes the country’s third-largest metropolitan as it sets up to plan a new direction.
Emanuel was conquering over five challengers with a 55 percent margin in Chicago Mayoral election while he needed more than 50% of the vote for absolute triumph.
The new Chicago Mayor Emanuel addresses his outstanding victory as “humbling” and “most gratifying.”President Obama in an official statement regarding the victory said that “as a Chicagoan and a friend, I couldn’t be prouder.”
Emanuel was selected as the Cabinet-level position of White House Chief of Staff of the President On November 6, 2008. Some Republican leaders were critical of Emanuel’s appointment since they assumed that it would not be falling in line with Obama’s claims to make politics less divisive since Emanuel standing as a partisan Democrat. Though Republican Lindsey Graham opposed the view by saying, “This is a wise choice by President-elect Obama. He’s tough but fair—honest, direct and candid.”
Where entire Chicago is busy in celebrating the victory, Mayor Richard M. Daley remained absent on the Election Day. As per a report, Daley and First Lady Maggie Daley will spend sometime in the Virgin Islands till this weekend. Sneed said that Daley left last Saturday and won’t be back until this weekend.
Anyway this doesn’t surprise as Daley and his father have led Chicago for over 43 years out of the last 56 years. The election was a clear reflection of the people’s verdict which says Chicago was longing for some new changes. So they elected Rahm Emanuel as majority of people though he is the man with some vision.
In the election campaign the new mayor’s agenda was against the declining population of the city, the pension deficits for city workers and also the critical issue like 2012 budget deficit which is estimated at more than $600 million. Through this win Emanuel enters City Hall’s fifth- floor mayoral suite with the additional burden of disturbed labor relations. His role during implementation o NAFTA during Clinton rule made many unions resented against him.
Among other notable Chicago mayoral candidates we see the names like previous Chicago schools president Gery Chico, former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun as well as City Clerk Miguel del Valle who had a great chance to win the election but Emanuel’s force and popularity surpassed all of them dramatically.
