Barack Obama should be Chicago’s next mayor.
Not in 2015, when Rahm Emanuel will ultimately sweat his way to a second term. But in 2019.
Obama will be a re-energized ex-president with some unfinished business. There is no other job on the planet where he could put his experience, relationships and community organization skills to better use.
Of course, there are a lot of moving parts to this scenario. Emanuel, Obama’s former chief of staff, and others would have to fall in line. But here’s a plausible path:
After leaving the White House, Obama will spend a year or two playing golf, writing a memoir and building his library. But he will yearn to get things done after spending the final six years of his presidency trying to circumvent an obstructionist Congress.
As mayor, Obama can reign as a benevolent dictator.
Emanuel will be easily persuaded to clear a path for his old boss and reclaim his old seat in the U.S. House. America will be plenty fed up by then with President Jeb Bush and a Republican-controlled Congress. It will be clear, heading into the 2018 midterm elections, that the Democrats will take control of the House. After a 10-year sabbatical as chief of staff and mayor, Emanuel will embrace his true calling: Speaker of the House.
Of course there’s the matter of Emanuel taking his old seat back from Rep. Mike Quigley. Easy breezy.
After 22 years in the Senate, Dick Durbin will leave to become chairman of the Obama library. The open Senate seat will be appointed by Gov. Bruce Rauner, whose re-election prospects will be in serious jeopardy because Lisa Madigan will have decided she is finally ready to be governor. Rauner will broker a deal with his old friend and business partner, Emanuel, and appoint Quigley to the Senate.
At this point, Obama could walk into City Hall. The former community organizer who once said the best education of his life involved rolling up his sleeves in Roseland could finally bring it all home. When Obama left the South Side for Harvard, he wrote in memoirs, he “would learn power’s currency in all of its intricacy and detail” so he could “bring it back like Promethean fire.”
After all these years, it is still unclear what truly motivates Obama. As mayor, he could revitalize the city’s struggling neighborhoods, reclaim his legacy and truly bring hope and change to the people who set him on his path.
And he could build an executive golf course atop Northerly Island.
Brad Spirrison is a writer and media technology executive who lives in Chicago.
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