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This week President Obama's former chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, was granted his heart's desire: he was elected, with an overwhelming 55% of the vote against multiple candidates, to the post of Mayor of Chicago. The city's first Jewish mayor, say the wires, but "I don't think of it as first Jewish mayor," said Emanuel, "I think of it as somebody with deep roots in the city of Chicago."
His opponents made a serious tactical mistake when they tried to represent him as a non-resident of the city, a carpetbagger, and to block his candidacy on what could only ever have been a legal technicality. The move failed, but for a while this highly advantaged candidate, with his connections stretching as far as Washington and Hollywood, and his campaign fund of $13 million (£8 million), was made to look like an underdog.
He's not, as his best friends tactfully put it, always a likeable figure. But for a while he could pass himself off as likeable. Besides, among the reasons why people have disliked him in the past are: a short temper; a tendency to yell and use expressions like "f***ing retards", and bullying. But when you come to think of it, doesn't this sound like what you would expect of the mayor of a major American city? Or would you expect a complete pussycat?
Emanuel has until May, when he takes office, to figure out how to cope with a large budget deficit without - in this most tax-averse of countries - doing things like raising property taxes (which are already scheduled to rise sharply in the coming years). In this respect the situation Chicago faces is a version of what every major city is facing, and what Washington itself is obsessed with: cutting budgets, cutting benefit and entitlements, cutting debt, cutting taxes - cutting, cutting, cutting.
From the point of view of President Obama, the world must look a strangely divided place. Abroad, he is faced with a social and political revolution which has already changed the Middle East but which shows no sign of pausing while America catches up. If Obama gets it right, the potential benefits are limitless; if wrong, the least you can say is that a great opportunity will have been wasted.
Obama chafes at the bit. Over Egypt he was longing to be more vocal in support of the uprising. The sudden civil war in Libya has put thousands of American lives at risk, and it may be that the caution of the White House in the past few days has reflected that primary concern. But at least we know what Obama stands for, and it can be expressed in two words: universal rights.
What the Republicans stand for - and who is doing the standing - is very hard to guess. When Obama turns from the consideration of fighter jets attacking crowds, hysterical mercenaries on the loose, the old order crumbling, what does he find back on the Washington scene? A Republican threat that if their demands for cuts are not met they could shut down the government as early as next week.
It's not that one is moved to pity Obama. This is what he asked for, and got. The slogan was change, and here it is. One does, however, pity the Republicans for the shrinking of their intellectual assets, their small-town vindictiveness and evident lack of serious leadership.
While at the national level a game of who blinks first is being played with the issue of the level of public debt, in states such as Wisconsin the bright idea among Conservatives has been to take the opportunity of a budget crisis to undermine collective bargaining rights for public sector unions. In order to prevent this happening, Democrat state senators, being in the minority, did the only thing they could to stall legislation - they left the state, thereby depriving the Republicans of the quorum they needed.
It is a bizarre tactic, for which one can think of no European, let alone British, equivalent. You leave your home state, under such circumstances, in order to foil your political opponents who might otherwise send state troopers after you, to pressure you into returning to your state chambers.
So it is that hospitable Illinois is now host to these absentee Democrats. If you go to the Comfort Suites in Urbana, you will find something in the region of 40 Democrat state representatives from Indiana, mostly, it appears, on the phone to family and friends asking for spare clothes (they seem to have left in a rush) and inquiring as to the where-abouts of the nearest launderette. They are about 100 miles from home. The missing Democrats from Wisconsin are also described as being holed up somewhere in northern Illinois.
Quite what the public attitude is on the broad question of public sector union rights depends very much on which polls you believe. A Gallup/USA Today poll had a decisive 61% of adults opposed to any law removing some collective bargaining rights from state employees, with 33% in favour. A Rasmussen poll (these are a favourite bugbear on the Left) by contrast showed 48 per cent of likely voters agreeing with the hawkish governor of Wisconsin, and 38% siding with the teachers and other state employees.
Whichever way you cut it, there is a hefty body of opinion that says now is the time to crush the unions. And there is support, reaching right up to the White House, for resistance to such a move, including the kind of border-hopping that we have seen. Whatever the outcome, this puts Chicago, Urbana and the gloomy launderettes of northern Illinois at the hub of the domestic debate, and gives some piquancy to the question: What will Rahm Emanuel do to fix Chicago's budget?
He asked for the job. He got it. Now he's on the spot.
Reader views (3)
Your absurd and biased reporting continues as usual.
Not useful for anything other than putting chips in.
Give it a rest - everyone can see that Obama and people like Emanuel are yesterday's men.
- adam, uk, 26/02/2011 07:16
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I'm tempted to argue against your unceasing attack on Republicans but there would be little point. You have no affinity for balanced reporting where the politics of the USA are concerned. Anything the Republicans did that might be deemed 'right and proper' (unlikely, as they are hardly going to join the Democrats enmasse to 'qualify' in your eyes), is, as historically 'reported' in your column, almost certainly going to have a negative attached to it as a matter of course.
I've seen you do a balance report (a few, actually) - not one had anything to do with American politics though.
- Rogan, Irving, 26/02/2011 04:20
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Universal rights
Don't make me laugh
Obama is doing his best to alienate friends and suck up to enemies
- John Smith, London, 25/02/2011 16:38
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