By Carol Felsenthal
The management consultant is in a dead heat with freshman congressman Robert Dold for Mark Kirk's old North Shore district—which, after redistricting, is even more Democratic. Read more
Carol Felsenthal
By Carol Felsenthal
The savvy politician gives personal details to the Times, likely betting that he’ll emerge from this mess of a strike as the reasonable reform-minded man—both on the local and national stages... Read more
By Carol Felsenthal
Reading Bob Woodward’s new book, The Price of Politics, this weekend—while the battle between Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis raged—I was reminded that the White House Rahm who tried to bully and bulldoze Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats into supporting his boss’s agenda was essentially the same City Hall Rahm who—although not sitting at the negotiating table—was the city’s public face of the ugly lead-up to the ongoing teachers strike... Read more
By Carol Felsenthal
The New York Times columnist's infatuation with Rahm Emanuel blinds him to the realities of the strike—Karen Lewis is outfoxing the new mayor, who's caving just like his predecessor. Read more
By Carol Felsenthal
For a few hours this morning, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post all had something in common on this the 11th anniversary of 9/11: Their top sections featured stories of the poisonous battle between Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the Chicago Public Schools versus Karen Lewis and the Chicago Teachers Union. The result is a huge stain on Chicago... Read more
By Carol Felsenthal
Chicago’s starring role at this week’s Democratic National Convention in Charlotte was the opposite of its role at the GOP convention in Tampa. At the latter, the city was a symbol of everything corrupt and thuggish about urban politics. Through the DNC lens, Chicago was once again was the shining city on the lake that the world adored on Election Night 2008... Read more
By Carol Felsenthal
The Obamas mostly have always maintained a strict zone of privacy when it comes to their daughters, but the president has occasionally shifted the zone to gain political advantage... Read more
By Carol Felsenthal
Illinois couldn’t be bluer, so not surprisingly we were nowhere near the stage at the just concluded Republican National Convention in Tampa. Still, there were some key attendees—and a few interesting no-shows—at the GOP fest. Read more
By Carol Felsenthal
No matter the fate of the Romney ticket this November, Paul Ryan—who is scheduled to deliver the biggest speech of his life on Wednesday night in Tampa—is sure to try down the line for the nomination for the top spot. And my guess is that Congressman Ryan and our own Mayor Rahm Emanuel could end up running against each other for president—if not in 2016, then in 2020. Here, a look at what the two men have in common... Read more
By Carol Felsenthal
Rahm Emanuel threw a hissy fit in May when he learned of the involvement of Joe Ricketts, whose children own the Cubs, in a proposed harshly anti-Obama ad that revisited the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy of the 2008 election. Ricketts is back, this time as an investor in a new Barack-bashing film called 2016: Obama's America. Read more