Emanuel’s Elected—Time to Pony Up!

In a recent column E. J. Dionne makes what I believe is the incorrect assumption of believing that beneath pretense and facade there is something other than more pretense and facade:

Mayor Rahm. It will be a hoot. It could even be good for Chicago.

And in a way he has never had to do before, Rahm Emanuel will finally reveal who he really is.

One of the many dramas of a Rahm mayoralty – roll over, Fiorello La Guardia – will be its status as a controlled (or, perhaps, uncontrolled) experiment in how a brilliant political operative translates campaigning skills into governing achievement. Bill Clinton was an elected official who happened to be one of the country’s smartest consultants. Rahm is the go-to adviser who happens to be good at running for office.

Contrariwise, I believe that what you see is what you get and that Mayor-Elect Emanuel has already demonstrated his core principles: partisanship and self-aggrandizement. These are the perfect characteristics for partisan firebrand and Democratic fundraiser. I’m skeptical that they will be helpful in the one party town of Chicago. Mayor Daley’s genius was the ability to unite or at least mollify the fractious groups within the Democratic Party in Chicago contending for power and money. To date Rahm Emanuel has not exhibited those skills other than to get them to vote for him. Can they be generalized? We’ll see.

But, as Mr. Dionne observes, it is indeed time to pony up. There’s an anecdote (attributed to Reagan) about the difference between optimism and pessimism. The thrust of the anecdote is that the optimistic little boy digs furiously through the pile of horse manure, unshakeable in his confidence that there must be a pony in it somewhere. I think the anecdote as usually told is mistaken: a pessimist doesn’t fail to see the pony in the pile of horse manure. That’s a realist. A pessimist looks at a pony and sees a pile of horse manure. Mr. Dionne is furiously digging through the pile looking for a pony; I’m pretty sure I know what the pile is.

BTW, I can’t let this go by without comment. In writing this

As mayor, he’ll be forced to resolve some of the mystery that surrounds him: in the programs he cuts, expands or creates; in the taxes he raises – tax cuts aren’t an option, given Chicago’s deficits; and in how he deals with his city’s public employee unions. (Hint: Model how a Democrat can deal effectively with unions without joining your Republican neighbor in Wisconsin in trying to break them.)

Mr. Dionne displays some ignorance of Illinois, Chicago, and Emanuel. The Democrat-dominated Illinois legislature has already enacted into law what is materially the same thing as Scott Walker is trying to accomplish in Wisconsin. They just did it without public debate or scrutiny over a one day period, almost literally in the dead of night. And Mayor-Elect Emanuel campaigned on something very much of the sort. That’s why it’s hard for me to see any core principles other than partisanship in the squabble going on in Wisconsin.