“To create true middle-class security, we can’t just cut our way to prosperity,” Emanuel said. “We must out-innovate, out-educate and out-build the world.”

Emanuel said Obama has made crucial, tough decisions based on his principles to help the country – and not in an attempt to lay the groundwork for a second term in the White House. And he asked the crowd whose judgment they wanted leading the country during such a critical economic time.

“In the next four years, there will be more challenges and more crises that will determine the economic vitality of the middle class and the economic future of this country,” Emanuel said. “Whose character, whose judgment do you want in that office?”

Obama has a solid history in Iowa. His surprising win in the state’s precinct caucuses four years ago launched him on the road to the White House, and he easily carried the state in the 2008 general election.

Emanuel’s appearance in the key early-caucus state was a chance for Democrats to grab attention from several Republican presidential candidates making their case to social conservatives across town. Emanuel used the opportunity to criticize GOP candidate Mitt Romney, even though Romney wasn’t in Iowa.

The mayor cited the sharply different views that Obama and Romney had on rescuing the auto industry and propping up the nation’s financial system. He argued that Obama’s views have been proven right, while Romney’s stance to not offer federal financial assistance would have destroyed the two key industries.

Emanuel also said Romney has flip-flopped in his political views, such as taking a more conservative stance on abortion and gun control.

“Mitt Romney says he’s a man of steadiness and consistency. If that’s true, then I’m a linebacker for the Chicago Bears,” said the slim, 5-foot-8 1/2 mayor.

In an interview before the event, Emanuel said he was looking forward to the prospect of a lengthy, heated Republican primary race – and the exposure it gives to the GOP candidates.

“I think a lot of people want to see it over quickly, and I don’t think they’re going to get that,” he said.

Sounding the populist theme that Obama has been offering in recent weeks, Emanuel also said the president is focused less on the difficulty of his tasks as president and more on the struggles of the American middle class.

“He continues to help them try to get their feet back on the ground. That’s the struggle he’s worried about, not his struggle,” Emanuel said.

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ILLINOIS — Preliminary results from the Chicago mayor’s race show Rahm Emanuel with a decisive lead over his opponents, but the results are not certain until votes are fully counted. Chicago polling stations closed at seven this evening.

RELATED: WBW Honors Cornel West

Fox News reports:

With 75 percent of precincts reporting, Emanuel had more than 54 percent of the vote. Former Chicago schools president Gery Chico had 25 percent, City Clerk Miguel del Valle had 9 percent and former U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley Braun had 8.6 percent.

Of the other two candidates in the race, Patricia Van Pelt Watkins had 1.5 percent, and William “Dock” Walls had less than 1 percent.

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Emanuel Files 90,000 Signatures For Chicago’s Mayoral Elections

CHICAGO-During a debate with Patricia Van-Pelt Watkins, Chicago Mayoral candidate Carol Mosley told fellow candidate, Patricia Van-Pelt Watkins that the reason she wasn’t aware of Braun”s recent activity is because “You’ve been strung out on crack for years.” at a debate at a Chicago church.

While Wakins has admitted to using drugs, she has denied ever doing crack.

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Carol Moseley Braun Rips Rahm Emanuel

Roland Martin talks with Burt Odelson, the attorney who has been leading the legal fight to challenge Rahm Emanuel’s eligibility to run for mayor.

“If we’re not going to allow choice to happen, then we’re really not a democratic society,” said Dan Murphy, a coffee shop owner in Chicago’s East Village who signed a petition to get one of Emanuel’s rivals on the ballot but hasn’t decided how he’ll vote. “What can choice hurt?”

Emanuel – who’s leading in the polls and has far more money than his competitors – has been fighting for two months to keep his name on the ballot after dozens of people claimed the former White House chief of staff didn’t meet a requirement that candidates live in Chicago for the year before an election.

The Chicago Board of Election Commissioners and a Cook County judge said he did, but on Monday an appellate court threw him off the ballot because he had been living for two years in Washington working as White House chief of staff. Emanuel, who moved back to Chicago in October to run for mayor, argues he’s a resident because he owns a house here, votes and pays taxes here and was only away serving his country.

The issue now is in the hands of the Illinois Supreme Court, where a decision could be announced as early as Thursday.

The appeals court ruling caused serious disruptions for election officials hoping to start printing ballots, and possibly some uncertainty for those considering voting early or giving Emanuel money. But across the city Wednesday, many Chicagoans appeared less surprised by the city’s latest political spectacle than upset at the perceived disruption to the democratic process.

“If he’s got a house, he must be a resident,” said 50-year-old West Side resident Robert Hill Jr., who calls Emanuel “an excellent choice” for mayor.

Howard Noel, who’s in the maintenance supply business, said he planned to vote for Emanuel and called the residency hearings “grossly unfair.” He also said the ballot fiasco reinforces the stereotype that Chicago politics are crooked.

“Rahm is a get-it-done kind of guy,” said Noel, 71. “I don’t care if he’s from Pittsburgh. If he can lead, let him lead. It’s not like he was spending time in jail. It’s an honor to work at the White House.”

To be sure, a good number of voters probably don’t think Emanuel should be on the Feb. 22 ballot to replace retiring Mayor Richard M. Daley.

“It’s fair because he doesn’t live here,” said Celesteno Orta, a 60-year-old retiree who lives in the city’s heavily Mexican Pilsen neighborhood and plans to vote for former Chicago schools chief Gery Chico.

The week’s developments proved beneficial for some and downright confusing for others.

For Emanuel’s main rivals – Chico, former U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley Braun and city Clerk Miguel del Valle – it was a chance to capitalize on his dilemma and try to convince voters to give them another look. Emanuel was the clear front-runner in a recent Chicago Tribune/WGN poll with 44 percent of all voters surveyed saying they would vote for him; he led among white, black and Hispanic voters.

For Chicago election officials who ordered 2 million ballots without Emanuel’s name on them after Monday’s appellate court ruling, it’s been chaotic.

They literally had to stop the presses midday Tuesday when the Illinois Supreme Court agreed to take Emanuel’s case and told them not to print ballots without his name. By then, nearly 300,000 invalid ballots had been printed; they resumed printing ballots with his name.

Now the confusion could extend to voters, with early voting starting Monday.

Chicago Board of Election Commissioners Chairman Langdon Neal said voters with any doubts should wait until the Supreme Court decision. If Emanuel doesn’t end up on the ballot, any votes cast for him would not be counted – and there would be no do-overs.

Fifty-seven-year-old part-time waitress Mary Tomaszewski called the situation “just baloney” and said it never should have gotten this far.

“I think it’s totally ridiculous because no person is ever going to want to take another job for fear if they come back to their home they aren’t going to be able” to run for political office, Tomaszewski said. “To me it’s like common sense, you know? This just looks childish.”

Flora Gregg, a 57-year-old laid off bank worker who lives in President Barack Obama’s South Side neighborhood, said if Emanuel isn’t allowed on the ballot, she’s ready to protest.

“What are they gonna do when the president comes back, not consider him a Chicago resident?” Gregg said.

Some have another take.

After two decades of relatively tame mayoral races in which Daley was a virtual shoo-in, the election spectacle may be maddening, but at least it’s not boring.

“It’s more interesting than having no point of contention in the race,” said Murphy, the coffee shop owner. “Mayors are traditionally kind of like goofballs.”

The court voted 2-1 to overturn a lower-court ruling that would have kept his name on the Feb. 22 ballot.

Emanuel plans to appeal the matter to the Illinois Supreme Court. Early voting was set to begin on Jan. 31.

“I have no doubt that we will in the end prevail at this effort. This is just one turn in the road,” Emanuel said, adding that the “people of the city of Chicago deserve the right to make the decision on who they want to be their next mayor.”

Those challenging Emanuel’s candidacy have argued that the Democrat does not meet the one-year residency requirement because he rented out his Chicago home and moved his family to Washington to work for President Barack Obama for nearly two years.

Emanuel has said he always intended to return to Chicago and was only living in Washington at the request of the president.

Emanuel is one of several candidates vying to replace Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, who did not seek a seventh term. Emanuel moved back to Chicago in October after he quit working for Obama to campaign full-time.

Before Monday’s ruling, attorney Burt Odelson, who represents two voters objecting to Emanuel’s candidacy, had little luck trying to keep Emanuel off the ballot.

The Chicago Board of Election Commissioners and a Cook County judge have both ruled in favor of Emanuel, a former congressman, saying he didn’t abandon his Chicago residency when he went to work at the White House.

Odelson had said he planned to take the challenge to the state Supreme Court, if necessary.

“Have I stood down at all? No, I’ve been confident all along because that’s the law. That’s the way you read the law,” Odelson told reporters Monday.

The three main other candidates running – former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun, former schools President Gery Chico and City Clerk Miguel del Valle – have been critical of Emanuel during the race, calling him an outsider who doesn’t know Chicago.

Emanuel appeared to have gotten a big boost last week when his campaign announced he raised more than $10 million and was endorsed by former President Bill Clinton during an event in Chicago.

A Chicago Tribune/WGN poll also released last week showed Emanuel with the support of 44 percent of those surveyed. The same poll found 21 percent of registered voters questioned prefer Braun, while 16 percent favor Chico and 7 percent support del Valle.

Del Valle said the appeal court’s decision bodes well for the other candidates and voters who may have thought the race was a foregone conclusion because the amount of money Emanuel has raised.

“Now voters see there’s an opportunity to look at the field and give candidates either a second look or in some cases a first look. People are going to pay more attention to the other candidates,” del Valle said.

In its ruling the court said while Emanuel met the requirements to vote in Chicago, he did not meet the requirements to run for mayor because he didn’t actually reside in the city for a year before Feb. 22.

“A candidate must meet not only the Election Code’s voter residency standard, but also must have actually resided within the municipality for one year prior to the election, a qualification that the candidate unquestionably does not satisfy,” according to the ruling.

The residency questions have dogged Emanuel ever since he announced his candidacy last fall. Emanuel tried to move back into his house when he returned to Chicago but the family renting it wanted $100,000 to break the lease and move out early. The tenant, businessman Rob Halpin, later filed paperwork to run for mayor against Emanuel, only to withdraw from the race a short time later.

More than two dozen people testified on the residency issue at a Chicago Board of Elections hearing in December. The three-day hearing got progressively stranger as attorneys gave way to Chicago residents who filed objections to his candidacy, including one man who asked Emanuel if he caused the 1993 siege at Waco, Texas.

Emanuel’s lawyer said he is hopeful the state Supreme Court will take up the case, especially since the appeals court decision was not unanimous.

“I think the fact that there’s a dispute within the appellate court certainly makes the case more enticing to the Supreme Court, but I don’t speak for them,” lawyer Mike Kasper said.

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Rahm Emanuel To Depart From White House This Week | News One

Roland Martin joins John King on the set of JKUSA to discuss Rahm Emanuel’s run for the Chicago Mayor’s office with Andy Shaw.

Roland, Shaw and King also discuss Emanuel’s relationship with the African-American community, Bill Clinton campaigning for him and his volatile personality.

WATCH:

According to Rahm Emanuel’s campaign, an aide turned in about 90,000 signatures Monday morning–which means one in 16 Chicago voters signed a petition for Emanuel.

Democratic Party lawyer Mike Kasper told Early and Often that Emanuel will have no problem with signatures, but if issues arise over the validity of Emanuel’s residency, Kasper said he would represent the former White House Chief of Staff.

Emanuel announced his bid for Chicago mayor on Saturday, and released his first campaign ad of the season this weekend as well.

Republicans For Meeks?

Following through in several public vows, state Sen. James Meeks announced Sunday that he would indeed run for Mayor of Chicago.

While no Republican candidates have publicly discussed running for mayor, Meeks has a conservative stance on most social issues–including opposition to abortion and gay rights. When he announced his candidacy Sunday, former Illinois Republican Party chairman Andy McKenna introduced him.
Story continues below
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“Sen. Meeks has one clear priority — it was there clear the first time he ran for office: children and education,” McKenna said Sunday, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Davis, Chico, Del Valle Are In

U.S. Rep. Danny Davis announced his candidacy on Sunday, vowing to bridge the gap between the city’s richest and poorest residents. Early and Often reports that Davis will not turn in signatures until deadline day–November 22.

Gery Chico is also expected to file an excessive amount of signatures on Monday. The Chicago Tribune reports that Chico, who is expected to arrive at the Chicago Board of Elections by 9 a.m., will file 52,254 petition signatures.

Read entire article at HuffingtonPost.com

So many potential candidates have surfaced — at least a dozen in the black community alone — that many fear the black vote could be widely split, ruining a chance to exercise the kind of influence that helped elect Chicago’s first black mayor, Harold Washington, in 1983.

Among other considerations is whether Rahm Emanuel, praised by President Barack Obama even as he left the administration last week to run, will win support from black voters in Obama’s hometown.

Facing the best shot in decades to push an agenda — including better solutions to violence, foreclosures and unemployment plaguing underserved black neighborhoods — black clergy, politicians and others have been meeting to try to throw their collective weight behind just one person, hoping the rest of the black community follows their lead.

“It is important to get behind one candidate … who has a sense of urban reconstruction,” said the Rev. Jesse Jackson, one of several community leaders arranging meetings.

RELATED: Homophobic Pastor James Meeks considering run for Mayor

But others put less stock in the effort. At least one candidate has expressed impatience with the notion of waiting to be anointed. And there is no guarantee such a coalition can unite a community that is more independent than ever — or persuade other candidates to bow out after making its pick.

Chicago’s black community, 35 percent of the city’s population, is increasingly diverse and not as tied to racial politics as in the past. Traditional leaders such as clergy and politicians don’t hold as much sway as they once did, said Chicago Sun-Times political columnist and DePaul University professor Laura Washington.

“There’s no one leader in the African-American community any more … with the charisma or moral authority to stand up and say ‘follow me,’ and maybe that’s OK,” said Washington, who believes there could be three or four black candidates on the ballot in February regardless of whom the coalition chooses.

Political consultant Delmarie Cobb says the heightened interest in running also stems from how long people have waited for the opportunity — Mayor Richard M. Daley won six straight terms before announcing last month he wouldn’t seek a seventh. The last black mayor was Eugene Sawyer, who was elected by the City Council and served a mere 17 months after Washington’s death in office in 1987.

“I really don’t think we will come up with a consensus candidate because egos won’t let (the others) step aside,” said Cobb, spokeswoman for Jackson’s 1988 presidential bid and the 1996 Democratic National Convention.

RELATED: Emanuel faces uphill battle for Chicago Mayor

Several groups considering whom to support plan to come together and try to pick “the best candidate to pay attention” to issues in the black community, said Alderman Walter Burnett, chairman of the City Council’s Black Caucus.

Those involved in the meetings among black leaders say their candidate doesn’t necessarily have to be black, though it seems likely.

The top vote-getters in a straw poll of about 100 ministers taken Sept. 17 were state Sen. James Meeks, a prominent black minister, and U.S. Rep. Danny Davis, who also is black, said the Rev. Ira Acree, pastor of Greater St. John Bible Church.

Runners-up included former U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley Braun and Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., despite recent revelations of an affair and allegations he wanted a group of Indian businessmen to raise millions for ousted Gov. Rod Blagojevich in exchange for Jackson’s appointment to Obama’s old Senate seat.

But nobody is ruling out Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, who is white and has made a name for himself with several actions viewed favorably in black communities, including his prosecuting several people in a burial scandal at a historically black cemetery. He came in fifth in the ministers’ poll, Acree said.

Acree acknowledged Emanuel could benefit in the black community from his connection to Obama, who once worked as a community activist on the South Side and remains immensely popular there. But the former presidential aide isn’t as popular among the city’s black leaders, who hope his entry in the race could help unify the community around someone else.

“Our job is to educate (voters) that Rahm is not the second coming of Barack Obama, that what they’re thinking is based on irrational logic,” Acree said.

A former Daley campaign aide, Emanuel was elected to Congress in 2002 in a district that includes part of Chicago’s North Side. But a number of possible mayoral rivals have charged he paid little attention to the city or its problems once he left to work for Obama in Washington.

“Rahm probably has stepped on some toes in the black community, and people are just very wary because of his close association to the mayor and because he’s not done much to reach out to the African-American community and make alliances,” Laura Washington said.

But others believe he’s someone who could get things done for Chicago, Washington said.

“I’m surprised at the number of regular African-American voters, especially older folks, who say they’re going to wait and see what he’s got to show,” she said.

No candidate will get far without being able to raise a lot of money and “show evidence of moving voters to vote” across all races and neighborhoods, the Rev. Jackson said.

That’s the only way to survive the February election, which many expect will become a sort of primary. If one candidate does not get more than 50 percent of the vote, the top two vote-getters will face each other in an April runoff.

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It’s laughable to watch political prognosticators on various TV shows as they weigh in on Rahm Emanuel’s chances of becoming the next Chicago mayor. If you trust any of them, you swear President Barack Obama’s outgoing chief of staff sees the position as a birthright that he is about to assume now that Richard M. Daley is stepping down.

Folks, don’t buy the national media hype. As they say, all politics is local, and in this case, Emanuel has a long way to go before he can even think of moving into the fifth-floor mayoral sweep.

Chicago has long been called a city of neighborhoods, and as a resident of the city for the last six years, I have witnessed the territorial views of its residents live and in full effect.

River North. Bronzeville. South Loop. Hyde Park. Beverly. Bridgeport. You name it, Chicago is a city that is all about its neighborhood boundaries. When you ask someone where he or she was born and raised, he or she is likely to give you the street address rather than just the South Side, North Side or West Side. And those boundaries are often defined by race.

With that being said, the issue of race will be a major obstacle for Emanuel, and not because he’s Jewish.

First, it’s assumed that because he was a Chicago congressman for six years, he’s well known in the city. Not true. Yes, he did represent a Northwest Chicago district, but there are political strongholds all across the city, and he’s going to have to navigate them.

The Chicago Sun-Times commissioned a poll shortly after Daley announced he wasn’t seeking re-election, and Emanuel placed fifth with 7 percent, within the margin of error. Those topping the poll: Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart (12 percent); state Sen. James Meeks (10 percent); Congressmen Luis Gutierrez and Jesse Jackson Jr. at 9 and 8 percent, respectively.

Chicago has never had an Hispanic mayor, and African-Americans are still chomping at the bit to revive the legacy of former Congressman Harold Washington, who stunned the nation with his election in 1983 when he bested a younger Richard M. Daley and Mayor Jane Byrne in the Democratic primary. No one thought he had a chance because race has loomed large in heavily Democratic Chicago; it was on full display when Washington eked out a victory that November against Bernard Epton, a white Republican that no one gave a shot and some say he subtlety stoked the fears of white residents about a black takeover.

Washington’s death in 1987 still resonates in the city, and with Daley reigning supreme for two decades — running everything from the schools to public housing to the rail system and the city college system — that enormous constituency sees this as an opportunity to finish what Washington started.

When you look at the city’s 50 wards, African-Americans dominate five out of the top 10. And of the top 23 wards with registered voters, African-Americans control a majority in 12 of those. Don’t assume that Emanuel, being a Democrat, can easily win those.

And if you’re one of those folks who think it’s wrong for me to focus on race, then you clearly don’t get Chicago politics.
It is an open secret in Washington, D.C., that the Congressional Black Caucus despises Emanuel. A longtime CBC member told me that normally when they meet with the president, the chief of staff attends the meetings. But in the time Obama has been in the White House, Emanuel hasn’t attended one meeting and he has always given a cold shoulder to black members of Congress. And if you ask black political operatives, pollsters and insiders, they all have a “why-I-can’t-stand-Emanuel” story.

If he wants to win the mayor’s race, just having the public support of Obama isn’t enough. He is going to have to deal with Congressmen Danny Davis and Bobby Rush as well as Jesse Jackson Jr. All three have massive ground troops, and if they are willing to rally around someone like the Rev. James Meeks — also a state senator (I attend his church, Salem Baptist Church of Chicago) who can also pull white social conservatives to his side — Emanuel can forget about getting a significant share of the black vote.

Then there is Chicago’s Hispanic community. The population is substantial, but to win, they need to be registered voters. And of the percentage making up a large portion of the 50 wards, the voters are more toward the bottom. Yet winning their votes is vital to building a winning constituency. With many blaming Emanuel for nothing when confronting immigration reform over the last 18 months as well as facing brutal scrutiny from Gutierrez, a major immigration reform proponent, he’s going to have to do a lot of politicking in order to win.

And of course, there are the city’s white voters. You have the Lakefront liberals and the city’s blue-collar workers, who are strong union supporters. Emanuel has been at odds with unions in his time as chief of staff, notably over health care and the primary bid of Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln. And the national labor leaders will be quick to remind their supporters in Chicago just how good of a friend Emanuel was or wasn’t.

Emanuel will also have to stare down Dart, a white man who won office with a multiracial coalition and has gained high marks, especially for refusing to follow-through on serving residents with eviction notices from their foreclosed homes. If Dart is in the race, along with Alderman Robert Fioretti, a savvy politician from the West Side of Chicago, they will able to win a sizeable portion of the white vote, thereby leaving Emanuel on the outside looking in.

Emanuel rightfully gets praise for his tough-as-nails approach to politics. But in a city that is used to Daley running the show with an iron fist for so many years, frankly, this might be the wrong time for someone with Emanuel’s style to seek the city’s top post.

We can expect a bruising battle in February for the job, and as many as 15 candidates could be on the ballot. The top two vote getters will go to a runoff, and there is a strong chance that Emanuel may not be one of those two. His runs are certainly a gamble, and it’s suffice to say that this could be the riskiest political decision Emanuel has ever had to make.

Roland S. Martin is an award-winning CNN analyst and the author of “The First: President Barack Obama’s Road to the White House as originally reported by Roland S. Martin.” Please visit his website at www.RolandSMartin.com. To find out more about Roland S. Martin and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2010 CREATORS.COM

Being Black myself, loving me some me and feeling almost sorry for anyone that isn’t either me or Black, I’ve always been confused rather than offended anytime that someone from a smaller segment of society compared his or her ‘struggle’ to mine.

I remember being a little kid watching Reverend Robert Schuller on television one Sunday and he had two ‘little people’ on. They were twins and they were complaining about or explaining themselves as handicapped. Then one of them said, “There are lots of handicaps. Being Black is a handicap.” I remember thinking how absurd that is, knowing as I even knew then that being Black didn’t guarantee that you’d get one of those special license plates or that you’d get to park in one of those spaces right up close to the drug store.

Of course, the worst offenders of the “Black struggle is like our struggle” mantra are the homosexuals. I never once read in history class about the continent from which all the homosexuals were kidnapped. And although their 400 years of slavery was probably just as rough as ours, I’ll guarantee you that the homosexuals absolutely refused to abide by the fashions restrictions.

Don’t me wrong; I’m all in favor of gay rights, marriage, ect.—in America. If I had my own country, I’d make all the gays move here.

But what gays should realize when they compare their rights movement to ours is that they are conceivable offending some people that would otherwise be in their collective corner. Negatively comparing the progress of your rights movement to ours is like suggesting that when we have rights that you don’t, the greatest conceivable injustice has been done. Like we Blacks should always get our rights only after everybody else has already been taken care of.

Finally, Sarah Palin was in the news (again) yesterday. Surprised? This time, she was blasting White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel because he said that a proposal to air attack ads against fellow democrats that oppose President Obama’s health care initiative was ‘f—king retarded’.

Palin, the mother of a ‘special needs’ child with Downs syndrome, likened Emanuel’s use of the term ‘retarded’ to using the ‘N-word’. This means that according to Palin’s math, Black=mentally challenged.

And being accused of being ‘mentally challenged’ by Sarah Palin is like the pot calling the kettle…

Rahm Emanuel wanted answers. Funds from a $2 million state grant to a school in his congressional district had not arrived, so he went straight to the man in charge: Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

For four successive days in 2006, then-Rep. Emanuel called for Blagojevich, with one message noting it was about the Chicago Academy, according to thousands of pages of call logs reviewed by The Associated Press. Emanuel’s chief of staff followed the next week with four more calls to a top Blagojevich aide.

The school grant is at the heart of an extortion allegation against Blagojevich, who was thrown out as Illinois governor in January and faces multiple federal corruption charges.

Prosecutors claim Blagojevich learned the congressman was inquiring about the school and hatched a scheme to squeeze Emanuel — now President Barack Obama‘s chief of staff — to get his Hollywood superagent brother to hold a fundraiser for him in exchange for releasing the school funds.

The school eventually got its money and no fundraiser was held. But Ari Emanuel shows up on the governor’s call logs for the first time 2 1/2 weeks after the state issued the final payment to the school.

Through spokeswomen, both Emanuels declined to explain why they were calling the governor and his chief of staff, John Harris, during that time. Neither Emanuel has been accused of wrongdoing.

The indictment does not name the Emanuels, instead referring to “Congressman A” and his brother. A person familiar with details of the indictment, speaking on condition of anonymity because the information is confidential, confirmed that they are Rahm and Ari Emanuel.

The indictment also does not say whether either Rahm or Ari Emanuel was ever pressured to raise money. It alleges only that Blagojevich told a lobbyist and a state official to talk to the congressman about a fundraiser, suggesting his brother host it.

Emanuel previously came under scrutiny in the case after Obama officials acknowledged he talked to Blagojevich about Obama’s vacant seat, which federal officials claim Blagojevich was scheming to auction off. They determined his discussions were “totally appropriate and acceptable.”

Harris is charged with one count of wire fraud and is cooperating with the investigation. Attorneys for Blagojevich and Harris did not return phone calls seeking comment. Blagojevich has repeatedly said he is innocent of all charges.

Rahm Emanuel and Blagojevich never connected during a four-day flurry of phone calls beginning Aug. 29, 2006, according to the records. One message indicates Emanuel was calling about the Chicago Academy, whose grant was being administered by the state’s Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity at Blagojevich’s direction.

Finally, Emanuel talked with Harris on Sept. 1.

That conversation was followed the next week by four calls to Harris from Emanuel’s chief of staff, Elizabeth Smith, Harris’ phone logs show.

The fourth, on Sept. 12, included the message, “The academy received the first check of $250,000 on Friday. What is the status of the past due amount of $150,000?”

There is no record of Harris returning any of Smith’s calls, the last of which was Oct. 16. But state records show the academy got payments of $150,000 and $500,000 in September, $178,000 in October and the balance, $916,000, on Dec. 15.

The phone records show Blagojevich and Emanuel spoke on Nov. 30. On Dec. 20, five days after the last payment, the log has a note that the governor “wants to call Rahm.”

Just weeks later, Ari Emanuel, a powerful agent who is the basis for Jeremy Piven’s character on the HBO show “Entourage,” first shows up in the governor’s call log. The messages don’t show the reason behind them.

On Jan. 3, 2007, Blagojevich’s log reads, “Ari Emanuel called and would like to speak to you. Endeavor Talent Agency.”

The two exchanged messages until speaking Jan. 19, when the log indicates, “Governor and Ari Emanuel spoke. Rod had John also call Ari.”

That’s an apparent reference to Harris, whose own log shows Ari Emanuel called him on Jan. 30 with the message, “Following up.”

Harris returned the call and left a message, and Ari Emanuel disappears from the log until June 19, 2007, when a call to Harris carries the note, “You’ll know what it is in regard to, he is Rahm’s brother.” Ari Emanuel called Harris again a year later regarding state legislation, according to Harris’ list.

Ari Emanuel, who has given $270,000 to federal candidates since 2000, shows up just once in state records: a $2,500 donation to Blagojevich in August 2002.

Despite their long relationship, Rahm Emanuel appears on the governor’s phone log only once before Sept. 5, 2005, days after Emanuel publicly announced the Chicago Academy grant. Blagojevich represented the same congressional district as Emanuel before becoming governor.

The pair spoke in February 2006 and again in May, the last time before the late-summer flurry of phone calls.

After that, there are more than a dozen contacts between the congressman and the governor on the logs from November 2006 through as late as Nov. 7, 2008, three days after Obama’s election.

The log shows Blagojevich spoke to Emanuel on Nov. 6, 2008. A day later, there was a message that Emanuel had called and requested a meeting with Blagojevich for the following day.

FBI agents arrested Blagojevich on Dec. 9 of last year, alleging he was trying to trade on his power to name a Senate replacement for Obama.

A report issued just before Christmas indicated Emanuel had “one or two telephone calls” with the governor after the election and four with Harris.

At the time, a White House attorney said Emanuel had discussed a Senate replacement but that the conversations were “totally appropriate and acceptable.”

Emboldened by his victory on the stimulus package — but chastened by the pothole-pocked road that got him there — -President Barack Obama and his aides are plunging ahead on a large and expensive agenda that virtually assures 2009 will be marked by intense partisan battles about the size and role of government.

White House aides say they have concluded that Obama too frequently lost control of the debate and his own image during the stimulus battle. By this reckoning, the story became too much about failed efforts at bipartisanship and Washington deal-making, and not enough about the president’s public salesmanship.

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“Everybody behaved appropriately,” declared Greg Craig, Obama’s incoming White House counsel and the person asked to conduct the internal inquiry into contacts between the transition team and Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Prosecutors have said Obama is not implicated in the case against Blagojevich, accused of trying to sell Obama’s Senate seat to the highest bidder. But the corruption scandal has drained precious energy from Obama’s preparations to take over the White House.

In addition to the time Craig devoted to the internal review that Obama requested, the topic also has surfaced at news conferences intended to highlight key appointments and policy priorities. And Obama himself had to sit down last week in Chicago for an interview by federal investigators, Craig’s report revealed. Accompanying him was lawyer Robert Bauer, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

Federal investigators last week also interviewed two top Obama aides, incoming chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and senior adviser Valerie Jarrett. Though Craig completed his review more than a week ago, Obama delayed making it public until those interviews were finished and U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald gave his team the go-ahead to put it out.

The inquiry was released Tuesday in Washington while Obama was vacationing in Hawaii. Though Obama has taken questions on the matter on five occasions since Blagojevich’s Dec. 9 arrest, the president-elect did not make himself available Tuesday to talk about it.

Blagojevich is accused of trying to use his authority as governor to appoint Obama’s Senate replacement to get cash or a lucrative job for himself, starting days before Obama’s Nov. 4 election through Dec. 5. The governor has denied any criminal wrongdoing and has resisted multiple calls for his resignation, including from Obama.

Wiretapped conversations cited in the criminal complaint against Blagojevich were not available to the Obama lawyers who conducted the internal review.

The report states, as Obama has said, that the president-elect had no contact about the seat with the governor or his aides. Further, no one on Obama’s transition team discussed any deals or had any knowledge of deals, Craig’s report said.

Emanuel was the only Obama transition team member who discussed the Senate appointment with Blagojevich or his aides, and those conversations were “totally appropriate and acceptable,” Craig said.

Those with knowledge of the federal investigation have said that Emanuel is not a target in the case. There also is no indication that Jarrett ever was a target, a transition official said. Like Obama, both were accompanied by lawyers for their interviews with the prosecutor’s staff, Gibbs said.

Fitzgerald’s criminal complaint quotes the governor’s conversations with aides, including discussions about swapping the appointment if Obama provided a Cabinet post or an ambassadorship or helped raise millions for a private foundation Blagojevich could tap for personal use.

Obama’s report states that none of Blagojevich’s aides reached out to the president-elect’s staff. The report only notes that Obama friend Eric Whitaker was approached by one of Blagojevich’s top aides to learn “who, if anyone, had the authority to speak for the president-elect” about the Senate appointment.

Obama told Whitaker that “no one was authorized to speak for him” and that “he had no interest in dictating the result of the selection process,” according to the report.

Emanuel had “one or two telephone calls” with Blagojevich and four conversations with John Harris, the governor’s chief of staff, who later resigned after being charged in the federal case, the report says. Craig told reporters Emanuel said he couldn’t be sure it was only one call.

The report said Emanuel had recommended Jarrett for the Senate seat without Obama’s knowledge. Jarrett later accepted a job as a senior White House adviser.

Obama authorized Emanuel to pass on the names of four people he considered to be highly qualified to take over his seat: Illinois Comptroller Dan Hynes, Illinois Veterans’ Affairs Director Tammy Duckworth, Rep. Jan Schakowsky and Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., the report said.

Others Obama considered to be qualified candidates, including Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and Chicago Urban League Director Cheryle Jackson, were offered later, the report said.

“Mr. Harris did not make any effort to extract a personal benefit for the governor in any of these conversations,” the report said.

During Emanuel’s interview Saturday, federal authorities played for him a taped recording of at least one conversation he had with Blagojevich’s office, according to a transition official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss information not included in the report.

Emanuel left for a long-planned family vacation in Africa on Tuesday and was not available for comment. Harris’ lawyer, James Sotos, declined to comment.

Blagojevich attorney Edward M. Genson, who has said the prosecutor’s allegations are built on nothing beyond talk, said Obama’s report proves his point.

Obama’s report details a conversation about the appointment between Jarrett and Tom Balanoff, head of the Illinois chapter of the Service Employees International Union, in which Balanoff told her that Blagojevich had “raised with him” the idea of being appointed Health and Human Services secretary.

Balanoff informed Jarrett he had told Blagojevich it wouldn’t happen, and Jarrett agreed, discounting the notion as “ridiculous,” the report states.

However, there was never any suggestion in the conversation that Blagojevich was linking the Senate appointment to the possible Cabinet posting, the report states.

SEIU officials are referenced, but not named, in the FBI affidavit, and Balanoff is believed to be one of them.

Blagojevich mentioned in a Nov. 5 conversation taped by the FBI that he would take the HHS job or “various ambassadorships” in exchange for appointing Obama’s choice, according to an affidavit filed with the federal complaint. The affidavit states he discussed it again days later with an unnamed SEIU official, believed to be Balanoff.

The governor told advisers in a Nov. 10 discussion that “it was unlikely” Obama would give him the HHS appointment or an ambassadorship, and he discussed other favors he could seek, according to the complaint.

Obama’s report also addresses confusion over earlier statements by David Axelrod, a top adviser who had said at one point that Obama discussed the Senate appointment with Blagojevich. Axelrod had discussed potential recommendations for the Senate appointment with Obama and Emanuel, and “was under the impression” that it would be Obama who would offer those to Blagojevich.

“He later learned that it was Mr. Emanuel who conveyed those names,” the report states.

From Newser.com:

Blame radio’s drive-time zoo disc jockeys for a new skepticism among politicians. GOP Florida Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen received a phone call from someone identifying himself as Barack Obama. She hung up on him, thinking it was a radio show prank—and even complimented him on his Obama impression. The only snag? It actually was the president-elect. Then she hung up on Obama’s chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.

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From SarojOnTheIssues:

So far so good, I’d say, with some exceptions:

Rahm Emanuel: I cannot think of a better person for the position of chief of staff, given his reputation as someone who “takes no prisoners.”  He has been involved in politics for some twenty three years, from political staffer to Congressional Representative from the state of Illinois.  Besides his experience, his no-nonsense attitude is much needed to keep President Obama’s staff on task, with regard to seeing his agenda through.

Click here to read an analysis of all of the other appointments, including Hillary Clinton.

Today, former Clinton advisor and Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel accepted Barack Obama’s offer to be chief of staff for the incoming president.

The pick of Emanuel is our first glimpse into the future Obama White House, and it has already thrown apprehensive Democrats and jaded Republicans alike into a tizzy.

Perhaps for good reason. With the nickname “Rahmbo” and a disposition likened to that of a mobster, Emanuel, though widely respected for his moxy and get-it-done record, isn’t exactly Mr. Nice Guy. A dynamic mix of talent and brawn — he was offered a scholarship to the Joffrey Ballet company and volunteered for the Israeli Army during the Gulf War — Emanuel’s the real-deal pitbull Democrat (lipstick not included).

What follows is a list of the five most infamous Rahmbo tales. It’s the stuff legends are made of:

1. Mailing a Dead Fish

Emanuel is known for his panache for treating donors right. He sends them cheesecakes from Eli’s, the famous Chicago bakery. But the one pollster who notoriously ticked off Rahmbo received a 2 1/2 foot decomposing fish in the mail — ripe, stinky, and to the point.

2. Fundraising the Bugsy Siegel Way

His foray into fundraising started in Chicago while campaigning for Mayor Richard Daley’s reelection, when Emanuel raised a record number of donations. His sales pitch was simple enough: He’d tell contributors he found their offers so low it was embarrassing and then hang up on them. Mortified, the donors were shamed into calling back and giving more.

Click here for the rest of the list.

Politico reports:

Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), a wily, aggressive West Wing strategist under President Bill Clinton, has accepted the post of White House chief of staff for President-elect Barack Obama, Democratic officials tell Politico.

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