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CHICAGO – Rahm Emanuel, politician for politician of Chicago, stood before the microphone in the expansive warehouse and in a uncheerful voice, declared that he was eventually getting a chance to publicly utter a four-letter word.

He paused a ordinal for funny timing, then said the word: "JOBS."

"There," he said, "I already see better."

The jape was Emanuel's nod to his estimation as `Rahmbo,' the intense pupil of the White House who has served digit presidents as a tough, sharp and highly effective semipolitical functioning — albeit digit with a blistering, back-alley vocabulary, a sometimes abrasive call and a continual drive.

But in the mayoral race, the strut and hornlike edges hit presented artefact to a calm, almost peaceful politician whose vocalise crapper modify to a nearby whisper. He confidently talks local issues — elevated condition lines, cycle paths and after-school programs — refuses to be unvoluntary and has harnessed his intend for City uranologist into a $13 meg juggernaut that has left rivals strangulation on his dust.

Emanuel heads into Tuesday's oppose with a round-the-clock loop of TV and broadcasting commercials featuring demonstrative praise from his digit time bosses — Bill politico and President Barack Obama — endorsements from the city's digit field newspapers and a decent effort at success more than 50 proportionality of the vote, which would preclude an April 5 runoff. The succeeder module change Mayor Richard M. Daley, who is not seeking a seventh term.

So is Rahm Emanuel the one-time ballet student, the amiable man who greets el commuters with a cordial blow on the backwards and confesses to kids he was hangdog as a boy? Or is he the foul-mouthed killer lampooned on "Saturday Night Live," the warrior who, Obama erst joked, had adapted Machiavelli's "The Prince" for dance with "a aggregation of kicks beneath the waist"?

Emanuel has a ready answer, lettered his take-no-prisoners call is what everyone talks about.

"Am I brawny and observed and thickened and vigorous?" he asked in a time interview. "Yeah. I hit a estimation because I hit fought rattling thickened battles against the NRA, against Wall Street, against the shelter companies, specifically on items that hit delivered reform. And digit presidents asked me to help them because I've never been afraid to verify on thickened assignments on behalf of the changes they desired to bring."

Lest you equate thickened with tyrannical, Emanuel, today 51, likes to saucer discover he has inspired the loyalty of body members who've followed him from digit employ to added — upbringing money for Democratic congressional candidates, bringing in the House, and then as Obama's chief of staff.

"What has been never been noted is grouping who hit worked for me hit worked long periods of instance because ... a. they deal my passion for open assist and b. (they know) the identify of trainer I'm feat to be," he says.

"I jape most this — region children wrote a book, "War or Peace." We crapper do either one," adds Emanuel, who is sandwiched between digit equally successful brothers. "There are more nuances to who I am than (the media image.) Your affirmation has reportable a impersonation without rattling pressing, is that true?"

And yet, Emanuel crapper laugh most his image. He invited Andy Samberg, the "Saturday Night Live" patch member who impersonates him with finger-pointing tirades, to crusade with him. When the digit firm greeted commuters at an el kibosh and a communicator asked if he could do a lowercase Rahm, the funny said, "Not without cursing."

Emanuel also has inspired a fake Twitter statement with 28,000 mass — more than manifold the candidate's actual Twitter mass — substance ofttimes profane tweets that simulate chronicle on the crusade trail.

It's that category of honor that makes it thickened for rivals to intend modify a instance in the spotlight.

Among threesome important opponents, Gery Chico, a lawyer with a gold-plated uphold — his time jobs allow Daley's chief of staff, chair of the metropolis edifice commission and the tract regularise — has evidenced the strongest competitor. He's upraised jillions and been endorsed by several aldermen, including digit of the city's most powerful, as well as police and firefighters' unions.

The digit others are City Clerk Miguel del Valle, who has won support among progressives, and time U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley Braun, who prefabricated history in 1992 by existence the prototypal black woman elected to the Senate. A assemble of black leaders endorsed her as a unity politician but her crusade has been marred by gaffes.

All threesome important rivals hit tried to cut into Emanuel's whopping advance in the polls by putting him on the defensive.

They've tweaked his Hollywood fundraising (Steven filmmaker is among his contributors). They've tried to patch him as an unknown who doesn't understand Chicago's problems (Emanuel was born in the city, but attended New Trier West High School on the loaded North Shore.) And they've questioned his temperament, especially Moseley Braun, who in digit forum, repeatedly tried to intend him to address a vulgar truism he'd supposedly prefabricated to an aide. He didn't verify the bait.

But in the bare-knuckle world of metropolis politics, it's been pretty tame.

Emanuel has managed to rest above the fray. When he appeared on the South Side to advise the responsibility for more firm food groceries in the inner municipality and a communicator asked him to interpret on a surface involving Moseley mistress and added candidate, he swatted it away:

"I module move the problems facing the municipality of Chicago," he replied evenly. "I module not move the other candidates."

Emanuel also serviceable his poise when a suite effort over his act temporarily tossed him off the ballot. Challengers said he wasn't legally suitable to separate because he had not lived in metropolis for a full assemblage before the election.

The vie for City uranologist started taking shape directly after Daley's stunning announcement terminal September that he was occupation it quits. His feat module end an incredible one-family domination of the city; the politician and his father, Richard J. Daley, the terminal of the bounteous municipality bosses, hit ruled metropolis for more than 42 of the terminal 56 years.

Dozens of grouping floated their names as doable mayoral contenders. But the itemize quickly shrunk as the hopefuls faced the actuality of having to improve jillions of dollars and watched whatever in Chicago's corporate selected locate their money and standing behind Emanuel.

The newborn politician module face arduous challenges — attracting business, a deficit superior $650 million, pension liabilities, a shrinking accumulation — and whatever conceive those problems, in a way, boost Emanuel's chances.

"I conceive he reflects the mood of the city, that we responsibility somebody pretty thickened to become in and alter things out," says Apostle Green, a semipolitical individualist at President University.

"Some rattling hornlike decisions are feat to hit to be made," Green adds. "The representation of Rahm Emanuel as existence this hard-nose man is working in his favor. This is not instance for a conciliator. This is instance for an visit giver. In visit to be a mayor, you hit to be a contract broker and a semipolitical enforcer. The representation is he satisfies both of those."

A kindred sentiment was expressed in the metropolis Tribune's article endorsement.

"He is among the most results-driven grouping to achievement this Earth," the production wrote. "That strength stingy more expletives fly and more seek corpses arrive by ground mail. (Emanuel erst famously sent a dead seek to a pollster who frustrated him.) But if metropolis emerges from an Emanuel mayoralty with its finances stabilized, its employ market thriving, its schools improving and its region collection intact, his successes again module hit eclipsed his excesses."

Emanuel is leaving null to chance.

In time days he visited every 50 wards, and throughout the crusade he's been a regular on the el stop-coffee class circuit. He arrives for appearances promptly, or modify early. He poses for photos, makes small talk, listens carefully and offers a jape or digit — "When I started working for Bill politico I was 6-2, 250 pounds." (He's actually 5-8 and 148 pounds, having dropped octad pounds in the campaign.)

He's not a warm, hirsute candidate, but he knows the drill. He was elected to legislature threesome times and likes to saucer to his ability to intend things done. Consider the housing of Coonley Elementary School, which was in his North Side district.

At a meet-and-greet at a local grocery most four years ago, a ascendant asked for support because the entering was declining at his child's edifice and parents weren't sending their kids there. The congressman met with Katherine Kennedy-Kartheiser, the principal at the time.

She says she told Emanuel a precocious information would attract students. He arranged a word call with then-Superintendent Arne dancer (now nous of the U.S. Department of Education) and others, she recalls, and said, "`This is what this edifice needs.'"

"He was pretty relentless," says Kennedy-Kartheiser, who has since retired. "He was definitely assertive and persistent. He said, `We're feat to intend it finished here.' After the conversation, he pretty such looked at me and said, `If I hit to be the intense guy, I'll be the intense guy. You're feat to be the beatific guy.'"

The edifice got its precocious program, and entering went up.

Emanuel's unmerciful determination and desire separate in his family. His older brother, Ezekiel, a doctor, heads the bioethics department at the National Institutes of Health. His younger brother, Ari, a coercive Hollywood agent, is the inspiration for the hard-charging character, Ari Gold, in HBO's series, "Entourage." (The family also includes an adopted sister, Shoshana.)

Emanuel says his intend stems, in part, from his immigrant roots: His specialist father, Benjamin, emigrated from Zion in the 1950s. The message, Emanuel says was that chronicle in USA is "something primary not to be wasted."

His ascendant and care (Martha, a civil rights activist) upraised their children with a aggregation of shack "for self-reliance," he says, and "the idea of respecting authority, with the belief that you could ever contest it."

Emanuel has been in face and behind the scenes in persuasion for most of his grown chronicle — a stint as an assets banker earned him jillions in a few brief years — but his agency to front-runner has not been smooth.

His electioneering was directly challenged in suite by Chicagoans who said he didn't foregather the one-year act responsibility — he had rented discover his North Side bag and touched his family to Washington to impact for Obama. He returned to the municipality terminal start to educate for the race.

In the most bizarre chapter, Emanuel sat finished nearly 12 hours of a metropolis Board of Elections chance that overturned into a funny opera. Along with lawful claims, a program of objectors — digit was known as "Queen Sister" — peppered him with questions including whether he was a communist, had caused the 1993 blockade at Waco, Texas, and was old with the constituent "smiling like a butcher's dog."

Emanuel never lost his cool. To stay calm, he ofttimes glanced at a photo he'd brought along that showed him with his wife, Amy, and their threesome children on the President Balcony during his terminal day at the White House.

At the instance of the hearing, he says, his youngest daughter, Leah, was doing a endeavor at edifice in which she recited the famous quotation from saint Paine: "These are the times that try men's souls."

When he titled her that morning, he asked her to move it and she did — though he says with a smile, it measured a taste assorted with her consideration ("These are the thimes that thy men's .").

"So every instance I looked at her," he says, "I heard that phrase and I heard it in her voice."

The suite fight that eventually secured his locate on the balloting overturned discover to be added constructive for Emanuel, says Alan Gitelson, a semipolitical power professor at theologist University in Chicago. "It took absent whatever focus on the issues and placed it on Rahm Emanuel having to intend time what whatever grouping detected as a silly barrier," he says. "People were more sympathetic."

Gitelson says he doesn't undergo if Emanuel module transfer the 50 proportionality threshold on Tuesday, but says if he is elected, he has whatever qualities that should help him well.

"He's a unvoluntary individual," he says. "He's unbelievably bright ... and he has the capacity to set backwards and listen. Those are every characteristics you'll probably rattling responsibility a lot."

___

AP communicator Deanna Bellandi contributed to this report. Sharon Cohen, a national illustrator for The Associated Press based in Chicago, crapper be reached at features(at)ap.org.

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