Quotes of the Day

Blinking back tears from her lilac-covered eyelids, Marsha Emanuel looks around at the crowd of 250 cheering for her son Rahm at Chicago's North Side John C. Coonley elementary school and says, "This is the moment I've been waiting for." The rally this weekend made official what everyone has known for months: Rahm Emanuel is running for mayor of Chicago. When asked if she thought the moment would ever happen, the candidate's mother says, "No," then scans the school gym filled with tie- and suit-wearing off-duty police officers and Chicago aldermen. "Well, actually yes. I have a great feeling that Rahm can pull this off."

Outside the school, however, protesters march with signs and chant, through a megaphone, anti-Emanuel sentiments about how as mayor he would simply continue Chicago's shady, crony-filled politics-as-usual. Protests have accompanied much of Emanuel's self-proclaimed "listening tours" of Chicago's neighborhoods since he returned to the city in September. On Wednesday, the former White House chief of staff dodged an egg that was thrown in his path while he toured Little Village, the Hispanic neighborhood on Chicago's South Side. He told reporters and citizens around him, "Don't worry about it."

The candidate does not appear to be worried about popular support. On Monday, Emanuel's campaign filed 90,905 signatures backing his candidacy. It was the very first day to submit petitions to the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners to secure a spot on the Feb. 22 ballot — and the number was significant and substantial. The campaign was eager to point out that, with approximately 1.4 million people registered to vote in Chicago, the signatures represent 1 in 16 voters. It is well beyond the minimum of 12,500 signatures to get on the ballot. "I'm not surprised," says Victoria DeFrancesco Soto, an assistant professor of political science at Northwestern University. "Rahm wants to scare people off. Getting signatures is a good way to do that. The best politician isn't always [the person] who has run the best race, but the one who keeps people out of the race."

Just a month ago, early polls had put Cook County sheriff Tom Dart, who made national news in 2008 for stopping foreclosure evictions in Chicago, ahead of Emanuel in the mayoral race. A much anticipated Rahm-Tom showdown ended when Dart announced at the end of October that he wouldn't run. Publicly, Dart cited his reason as wanting to spend time with his children. His departure left the field open without a clear front-running candidate to contend with Emanuel. "Rahm's great appeal is being 'Rahmbo,'" says Don Haider, a Northwestern political professor who ran for Chicago mayor in 1987 against Harold Washington and first met Emanuel in 1983 when Emanuel was making phone calls to raise money for Mayor Richard Daley (whose decision not to run for another term started the free-for-all rush to succeed him). "With him, it's 'You are either with me or against me, and if you are against me I'm going to run all over you.'"

Along with his signatures, Emanuel has $1.2 million left in his campaign from his days as an Illinois Congressman on Chicago's North Side and is getting help from his Hollywood-agent brother, Ari Emanuel, who co-hosted a fundraiser in Los Angeles. Plus there's a Presidential endorsement by way of a White House Rose Garden send-off in which Barack Obama said Emanuel, 50, would make "an excellent mayor." The candidate plays up the connection. "Only the opportunity to help President Obama as his chief of staff could have pried me away from [Chicago]," Emanuel said during his kick-off rally. "And only the opportunity to lead this city could have pried me away from the President's side. Because he knows and loves Chicago, President Obama supported my decision — for which I am grateful."

Does all that make the race a slam dunk for Emanuel? Not quite. He is still fighting residency problems in Chicago, which requires a candidate to have been a resident of that city for a year before the election. After Emanuel moved his family to Washington, D.C., two years ago to work at the White House, he rented his four-bedroom house to a tenant (who is apparently refusing to move before his lease is up in June 2011). In the meantime, Emanuel is living in a condo in Chicago's River North. Emanuel's residency could be challenged by other candidates after they officially file their petitions.

Emanuel's campaign manager says it's a moot point with "no legal merit" and "old school politics at its worst," since the residency regulation also states, "No elector or spouse shall be deemed to have lost his or her residence in any precinct or election district in this State by reason of his or her absence on business of the United States, or of this State." Experts say that since Emanuel voted in local elections by absentee ballot and pays local property taxes, the election board will likely consider him a legal resident, just as it does members of the military from Chicago.

But there are more potential bumps on the campaign road. Voters will likely remember Emanuel's association with the first trial of now convicted former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich. Emanuel agreed to sign a letter on behalf of Blagojevich and send it to the Chicago Tribune supporting Blagojevich after a newspaper editorial chastised the governor's egotistical management style. Immediately after the supporting letter was issued, Emanuel's staff allegedly asked Blagojevich's office to release a much delayed $2 million grant to a school in Emanuel's district. But judicial timing may work in Emanuel's favor. The Blagojevich retrial — and the likely regurgitation of allegations and scandals — has been delayed until after the mayoral race.

If no one wins the mayor's office outright on Feb. 22 — victory requires 50% of the votes cast plus one vote — Chicago would have to hold a runoff between the top two vote getters on April 5, which would be the first in the city's history. Several groups and interests in the city are already trying to organize to blunt Emanuel's growing momentum — with limited efficiency.

After two months of closed-door meetings, the Chicago Coalition for Mayor, a caucus of more than 60 African-American politicians, religious and community leaders and organizations, chose U.S. Representative Danny Davis as their "consensus candidate" for the black community. The Coalition had also considered former U.S. Senator Carol Moseley Braun, 63, the only African-American woman ever elected to the U.S. Senate, and the Rev. James Meeks, an Illinois state senator and influential pastor of the Salem Baptist Church. Both have said they are running, moves that will likely fracture Chicago's usually powerful African-American voting bloc. To counter Emanuel, Braun also filed more than 90,000 signatures on Monday.

Like other candidates, Davis, 69, says running for mayor wasn't even a consideration for him until Daley, 68, decided not to run again. "You run when there is an opportunity," says Davis, who was recently re-elected to Congress by more than 80% of the vote in his constituency and filed a petition of more than 50,000 signatures Monday. "You may be interested when there is a fight, but if they've got a tank and you've got a slingshot you will delay the battle. There are a number of people who have been interested in running for mayor of Chicago, but they didn't necessarily want to go up against the bazookas."

Meeks is not shy about his ammunition. On Sunday night, he rallied more than 400 supporters at the University of Illinois at Chicago Forum for his formal candidacy announcement, the largest mayoral rally thus far. Alternating political commentary with music, including an 11-year-old violinist and a seven-piece band, Meeks appeared with heavy hitters in the local political pantheon: Andy McKenna, the past chairman of the Illinois Republican Party, who ran in the 2010 Republican primary election for governor, and Frank Clark, CEO of electric utility giant Commonwealth Edison, who would co-chair his finance committee. Meeks' campaign manager says they will not file their signature petitions until sometime before the Nov. 22 deadline. "People are assuming this is Rahm's race to lose, but I don't think so," Meeks told TIME. "Clearly, he's the person who can raise the most money, but I don't think money buys elections. I think track records do and the ability to galvanize people."

Attorney Gery Chico, Mayor Daley's former chief of staff, a former Chicago School Board president and lobbyist, certainly feels the same way. But he has raised close to $1 million and filed 50,254 petitions that he hauled in with a red Radio Flyer wagon. Although Chico may not be as well known, he appears to have Daley's blessing, if not quite an endorsement. The retiring mayor has called him "a wonderful public servant" and said he feels closer to Chico "than anyone else" in the race. With "Sweet Home Chicago" blaring in the background, Chico, 54, stood on two orange milk crates Saturday morning at a South Side church, speaking to 100 or so in the room as he announced his candidacy. "The economy has racked us badly and now's the time for leadership. We have to take the city in a new direction on job creation," Chico said. "We are going to lift Chicago by its neighborhoods block by block."

Fellow candidate and Chicago city clerk Miguel del Valle, 59, is trying to do the same. Del Valle was appointed to his current position by Daley after spending 20 years as an Illinois senator. He is the first Hispanic to serve in both roles and said he filed approximately 40,000 signatures on Monday. Maintaining city records has its advantages in terms of name recognition: every Chicago resident who owns a car must display a city sticker bearing del Valle's name. Still he has the least amount of money of any candidate because he has pledged to reject contributions from anyone doing business with the city. Joking Sunday night, del Valle said, "I've always been the underdog and I've never known anything different. This is about a grass-roots effort." The lawn, however, may not be pretty after Rahm and the other candidates trample all over it.

• Dawn Reiss / Chicago
• The former White House chief of staff has begun his campaign with an intimidating number of signatures backing his candidacy. But there are several willing to try to stop him