* I’ve heard this through the grapevine as well, but I don’t know it it’s true or not…

Hmmm. Sneed hears White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is privately telling folks Chris Kennedy — if he runs — may potentially be the strongest candidate for the U.S. Senate seat once occupied by Barack Obama.

• • The buckshot: State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, an Obama basketball buddy, has raised buckets of cash in his exploratory push to capture President Obama’s old Senate seat . . . and is a close friend of Rahm and White House senior adviser David Axelrod.

• • The backshot: Kennedy, who runs the Merchandise Mart and is the son of the late U.S. Sen. Bobby Kennedy, is weighing his options. But top Dems are predicting Kennedy is going to run.

And wags are quietly wagging their tongues about this too…

Poll ‘em: Sneed hears GOP U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk, who has been pondering a U.S. Senate run, may also be concerned about a Kennedy bid.

The upshot: Sneed is told Kirk has included Kennedy in his polls, but Kirk spokesman Eric Elk said that was not accurate.

• • The buckshot: Pundits have been all over the place recently predicting Kirk’s future. Kirk and his wife, Kimberly, are separated. Is a divorce in the near future? Does Kirk feel that may have an impact? Stay tuned.

I’m not at all convinced yet that the separation is a huge part of the equation right now, but this Kennedy thing has definitely caused Kirk to rethink the plan. Kirk spent a lot of time planning a race against Giannoulias, but Kennedy changes the game and Kirk is a careful man. He needs a bit more time to think things through, so people should take a breath.

By the way, it’s good to see Sneed getting her groove back on politics. “DId you see Sneed today?” used to be a regular question asked by people in this business. I found myself asking it again today. Made me smile.

* Sen. Roland Burris has a lame excuse for his campaign finance report’s, um, lameness…

Burris has been so out-of-the-loop on the campaign side of things that he actually expressed surprise at having to file his first fundraising report last month, as well as his personal financial disclosure.

“Those rules kind of came up on me in terms of having to file a quarterly report,” Burris said. “Nobody told me that.” […]

[Burris] raised just $845 in the first quarter of 2009 compared with another Democratic candidate who has raised more than $1 million.

* And Treasurer Giannoulias tries to change the subject…

Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias threatened [yesterday] to drop Wells Fargo as the treasurer’s office’s money custodian and to take the bank off its list of preferred vendors if Wells Fargo doesn’t back off its efforts to force Chicago suit maker Hartmarx into liquidation.

* Steve Huntley looks at the crop of GOP gubernatorial candidates and concludes his column thusly…

“I’m not sure the party knows what they are looking for,” says Doug Whitley, the president of the Illinois State Chamber of Commerce, who recently ended his bid for governor largely because of a money shortage. “It’s not a highly centralized structure. You’ve got the so-called money people, the county chairmen, the state central committeemen and [state chairman] Andy McKenna. But there is no statewide officer holder who is an obvious leader, there’s no obvious council of decision-makers.”

Whitley says his travels found voters frustrated with the lack of leadership in Springfield and a political class “who don’t care about jobs lost, about companies going to other states.” The question: Can the GOP get its act together?

Good question.