"I'm not done with public service, and I'm hoping public service is not done with me," Rahm Emanuel has said multiple times since returning from Japan, where he was the US ambassador during President Biden's administration. The former Chicago mayor hasn't ruled out another run for mayor, or a bid for the Democratic nomination for Illinois governor, but Jonathan Martin at Politico believes the 65-year-old will almost certainly run for president in 2028. Martin says it is "striking" to speak to "anybody in high-level Democratic politics who knows Emanuel—which is to say most everyone— and hear how matter of fact they are about the inevitability of his candidacy."
Emanuel—Barack Obama's first White House chief of staff—has landed a CNN contract and a Washington Post column since returning to the US. According to Martin, a big sign of a 2028 run is the fact that he is "already road-testing the first outlines of a stump speech, or at least an issue he can make his own." Emanuel, who has often clashed with the Democratic party's left, argues that focusing on "woke" issues like transgender rights has hurt the party. "I am done with the discussion of locker rooms, I am done with the discussion of bathrooms and we better start having a conversation about the classroom," he said at a conference in Washington, DC, last month.
At an Economic Club of Chicago event last week, Emanuel said a failure to focus on working-class issues like housing affordability cost the party the election in November, the Chicago Tribune reports. He said the MAGA movement wants Democrats to focus on "woke culture discussion" because "you're missing everything else that's happening at the kitchen table." Martin says a presidential run would be a good move for Emanuel because even a losing bid could elevate him to a senior role in the next Democratic administration, though Emanuel will likely be seeking a win. He says Emanuel told him: "Nobody looks at a presidential campaign and does it to say, 'Well, we'll see what this feels like.'" (More Rahm Emanuel stories.)
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