IN THE NICK OF TIME

The Fixer Is In: Chicago's Mayor Elect Rahm Emanuel Faces Daunting Challenges

By Elizabeth C.

THE POLITICAL FIXER WILL HAVE HIS HANDS FULL IN CHICAGO.

Rahm Emanuel inherits a city staggering under a $654 million budget deficit and a $23 billion unfunded city workers' pension, a shrinking population and few obvious options for new tax revenue.

"What comes next is a bunch of ugly," Ralph Martire, executive director of the bipartisan Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, told the Associated Press.

Even as Wisconsin and Indiana Republicans face off with their state employees' unions, the Chicago Sun-Times urged the Democrat Emanuel to "cut pensions but don't bust unions." "The Great Divide in Tuesday’s mayoral election was not race or ethnicity or even the Loop vs. the neighborhoods,'' opined the paper's editorial page. "It was city workers vs. the rest of us."

Emanuel won 55 percent of votes cast Tuesday by building a "coalition of ethnic groups" and spending $8 million on his campaign. That amount dwarfed the amount spent by Gery Chico, his closest rival, who raised slightly more than $2 million total.