HANDICAPPING THE INEVITABLE?

Chicago Media Throw Imaginary Roadblocks In Rahm Emanuel's Way

By Elizabeth C.

SO IT'S OFFICIAL: OBAMA'S FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF RAHM EMANUEL wants Mayor Rich Daley's office. He's quit the White House and returned to Chicago where he's hit the ground running to collect the 12,500 signatures required to be on the primary election ballot. The deadline for collecting the signatures is Nov. 22.

Emanuel holds the highest profile in a race that some predict will have as many as 30 candidates. And though some also say that the upcoming fight will be steep in racial politics, the minority most likely to -- Jesse Jackson Jr. -- is walking on eggshells over charges that he used a liaison to offer $6 million to disgraced Gov. Rod Blagojevich for Obama's vacated Senate seat.

Never mind the revelations that he was involved in extracurricular hanky panky outside his marriage.

So Emanuel's the man to beat. But the media and even Mayor Daley have to at least pretend this is a democracy, that there's a chance that the candidate with the most money, connections and name recognition won't win.

Daley says it's all up to voters -- 32 percent of whom turned out in 2007 for the last mayoral race.

The local media is doing its part too to cast doubt on the inevitable: Yesterday the Chicago Tribune stirred the collective with a piece on how Emanuel doesn't have the Jewish vote sewn up. And this morning the Sun-Times play the most amusing game of "what if?" in a story suggesting that Emanuel's residency is in question. Emanuel's is currently locked out of his own home because he leased it through June 2011. But the paper answers its hypothetical scenario in the subhead: Courts may disagree.

Here's my take: the day that an Illinois court denies Emanuel residency is the day pink unicorns are spotted riding rainbows over City Hall.