Rahm Emanuel’s bid for Chicago mayor was off and now back on, thanks to the Illinois Supreme Court. Now, the campaign is taking aim at the opponents with slick ads bankrolled by a huge warchest. Carol Marin at the Chicago Sun-Times brings up some interesting points about Rahm’s rhetoric. This ad, “Hard Truths”, from earlier in the campaign says that city government isn’t about cronyism and getting rich off of the system::

His opponent, Gerry Chico, posted this, which calls into question Rahm’s role in the failure-ridden Freddie Mac:

Marin recounted questions directed at Emanuel at the mayoral debate. Co-moderator Bruce Dold asked him flat out about his receiving $320,000 to attend six meetings a year as a Freddie Mac board member—an appointment given to him by Bill Clinton, despite Emanuel having no finance experience. Marin had some hard truths of her own to point out to Emanuel:

One, Emanuel’s job on the Freddie Mac board was a high-end patronage job given to him by his former boss and friend, then-President Bill Clinton.

Two, Emanuel’s most recent boss and friend, the current president, has refused to release the minutes of Freddie Mac board meetings during Emanuel’s tenure.

Three, Rahm Emanuel is talented and smart. But not smart enough to see the potential hypocrisy in launching an ad about how clout-heavy politicians hand out jobs to their friends and not see himself in that story.

Strategically, this is a flop on his campaign’s part. He’s the frontrunner in the polls and making a stink out of patronage when he’s benefitted from it is pretty amateurish. Given the swirling of controversy over his “residency” eligibility to run, I think it would have been better for him to focus solely on a platform that shows that he’s in touch with the needs of Chicago.

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