'Mayor Emanuel' Is No Sure Thing in Chicago

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Axelrod, who worked with Emanuel on Daley's first successful run for mayor in 1989, said he was "a little stunned" by the announcement. "We're just absorbing that news and, you know, the impact that it will have on Chicago, which will be large," Axelrod said. "You know he's an enormous presence there, and it's really grown in wonderful ways under his leadership."

Daley, 68, made his announcement at a City Hall news conference where he was surrounded by his wife, Maggie, and other family members.

It's Time

"It's time," he said. "It's time for me. It's time for Chicago to move on."

The son of the late Mayor Richard J. Daley is serving his sixth term as the leader of the third-largest U.S. city by population. The younger Daley's tenure was marked by his takeover of the city's school system, the demolition of public housing built during his father's tenure, corruption scandals and a failed bid to win the 2016 Summer Olympics.

"Improving Chicago has been the ongoing work of my life," Daley said. "I loved every minute of it." Speculation about whether he would run again intensified after Chicago was bounced in the first round of last year's competition for the Olympics.

More than half of Chicago voters said they didn't want to see Daley re-elected, according to a Chicago Tribune/WGN-TV poll in July that also found that 37 percent of city voters approved of the job he is doing.

Former Congressman

Emanuel, who served three terms in the U.S. House representing part of Chicago's North Side before being picked by Obama for the White House job, said in April he would be interested in the job if Daley didn't run. "That's always been an aspiration of mine," Emanuel said in an interview on PBS television's Charlie Rose Show. "If Mayor Daley doesn't, one day I would like to run for mayor."

Emanuel worked as a senior strategist and chief fundraiser for Daley in his 1989 campaign, before working for the 1992 Bill Clinton presidential campaign and then in the White House.

Daley may have chosen not to run because of his wife's almost decade-long fight with breast cancer and the stubborn nature of the city's problems, McCarron said. Daley was angered by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June that rendered the city's 28-year-old handgun ban unenforceable. "It had stopped being fun," McCarron said. "The problems he cared the most about had become intractable."

Budget Trouble

In the past two years in particular, Daley has faced challenges surrounding a weak economy and budget shortfalls that have triggered city worker layoffs and unpaid furlough days. Chicago is forecast to have a $654.7 million deficit in a $3.39 billion budget for 2011, according to a July 30 estimate from the city. Daley filled holes in the current $3.12 billion budget by transferring cash reserves from the earlier privatization of parking meters, garages and a tollway.

In a city where the first Mayor Daley served from 1955 until he suffered a heart attack and died in office in 1976, the son will pass his father's record for time in office late this year. Politicians from Washington to Springfield, Illinois, praised Daley, who has played important roles in both Illinois and national politics.

"No mayor in America has loved a city more or served a community with greater passion than Rich Daley," Obama said in a statement. "He helped build Chicago's image as a world class city, and leaves a legacy of progress that will be appreciated for generations to come."

The Reverend Jesse Jackson, whose son, Representative Jesse Jackson Jr., has been mentioned as a potential mayoral candidate, offered a less upbeat assessment. "His strength was downtown urban development, more so than in neighborhood community development," Jackson said in a statement. "The next mayor will face the burden of huge deficits and a city that is virtually insolvent."

McCormick and Preston are reporters for Bloomberg News.

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