* Roland Burris…

“I’ve always said there’s no one better qualified than me to be mayor,” he said.

Oy.

* This story just gets weirder and weirder…

A notary public says her signature was forged on 400-plus nominating petition sheets filed by Chicago mayoral hopefuls Rob Halpin and James Meeks — a development that raises new questions for the supposedly rival candidates.

A signature and notary seal for Maricela Rodriguez appear on more than 25 percent of Halpin’s 1,185 petitions, including 266 circulated by a homeless sex offender, Arthur J. Hardy Jr.

Hardy also circulated 316 petitions for Meeks. Rodriguez isn’t listed as notarizing any of those sheets, but she does appear as the notary for 97 of the 4,691 petitions Meeks submitted to Chicago elections officials.

Despite that, Rodriguez, a district manager for a currency-exchange company, says she didn’t notarize any petitions for Halpin or Meeks.

So, to sum up, the implied allegation here is that Meeks and Halpin hired a homeless sex offender to gather petitions, who then allegedly forged a notary’s seal on the petitions he gathered for Halpin, but not for Meeks. However, somebody else allegedly forged that same notary’s seal on some other Meeks petitions.

If that’s true, then Meeks’ denials aren’t looking so great right now…

Mr. Meeks says he believes the gatherer, Arthur Hardy Jr., effectively worked as a subcontractor for someone else whom his campaign had hired at the end of his petition drive to collect signatures on his nominating petitions.

Mr. Meeks says he does not know the name of that person but adds, “There was no coordination at all with Halpin. I don’t know him. I never met him.”

This may be the fault of the person who was hired by the campaign who also hired Hardy. It would be helpful if we knew who that was.

* As I’ve said before, Rahm Emanuel may or may not have a solid residency case, but this might all come down to the judge he draws…

‘Rahm Emanuel may be the 800-pound gorilla in the mayor’s race,” said a savvy politico who phoned the other day, “but remember that Ed Burke is the 800-pound gorilla when it comes who gets to be a judge in this town. Keep your eye on the Daley Center.” […]

What my politico caller was asking was whether a judge blessed by Burke would be brave enough to rule strictly on the merits of the case, wherever that ruling might go.

Everybody knows Burke cannot stand Rahm Emanuel and is instead backing former schools and City Colleges chairman Gery Chico.

But another politico I called, one equally well steeped in Chicago politics, laughed at the notion that a ruling on Rahm Emanuel’s residency might depend on whether a judge felt beholden.

“Once a judge gets to the bench,” he told me somewhat ruefully, “they forget everybody.” It wasn’t a compliment.

Despite the politics involved in picking our judges, there are some excellent people on the bench in Cook County.

Then again, there are some utterly incompetent ones as well.

* Related…

* Sandi Jackson runs for re-election as alderman, not city clerk

* Deadline brings objections in mayor’s race

* Ballot shenanigans

* More than half mayoral hopefuls face petition challenges

* Rahm Emanuel pledges to end revolving door at Chicago’s city hall

* Rahm Emanuel on “Chicago Tonight”

* Stroger administration spent nearly $79,000 on zoo picnic for flood victims