Good morning. Here is your Monday SPEED READ:
1. If he decides to leave his job as President Barack Obama‘s chief of staff to run for Chicago mayor, Rahm Emanuel would leave the White House “relatively soon,” according to a “senior administration official” who spoke to the Wall Street Journal. Although Obama has said he expected Emanuel would not make a decision until after the mid-term elections on Nov. 2, Emanuel clearly would need to start putting together a campaign operation sooner than that. The filing deadline for the mayor’s race is Nov. 22.
2. Chicago’s “totally disunified” black political class seeks to avoid a repeat of the bitter divisions that allowed Mayor Richard M. Daley to grab the mayor’s office and hold onto it tightly for more than 20 years. The CNC’s Mick Dumke and Don Terry produced this expert analysis of the local African-American political landscape for the “Chicago section” of the Sunday New York Times.
3. The Associated Press thinks Chicago’s Latino community “finds itself in position to be a deciding factor” in the 2011 mayor’s race to success Daley. Latinos make up 28 percent of the city’s population, but are only about 15 percent of voters, the AP said. The Latino leaders who have entered the race or are pondering a run include City Clerk Miguel del Valle, U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, former Daley chief of staff Gery Chico and former 1st Ward Ald. Manny Flores.
4. Sen. Roland Burris gave an interview to the Daily Herald in Washington and said the Bush tax cuts for those who make more than $250,000 a year should be allowed to expire. He declined to comment on the legal travails of the man who appointed him, former Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Most noteworthy was that this interview was presented in the paper in a question-and-answer format and Burris reportedly did not refer to himself in the third person even once.
5. Carol Moseley Braun is not yet willing to commit to a mayoral run but she is holding a news conference today in any case. She certainly must hope that this comeback attempt goes better than her 2004 run for the White House, which ended before the Iowa caucuses.