The Hill News

When Rich Daley shocked Chicago on Tuesday by announcing that he would not seek reelection to a seventh term, speculation about his potential replacement heated to a boil â€" everyone from White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel to Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D) to the Cook County sheriff to the Cook County assessor to a dozen aldermen whose names were obscure even to the political junkies among us.

As Tuesday wore on, the list of possibilities lengthened so quickly, I was surprised not to see on it the political basket case also known as Roland Burris (D), Illinois’s junior senator. (He’s the endless embarrassment whom disgraced Gov. Rod Blagojevich, D, named in the short period between his arrest and impeachment to replace Obama in the U.S. Senate; it was Blago’s way of saying, “Screw you” to the state’s establishment.)

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