*** UPDATE *** From the Tribune…

Mayoral candidate Rahm Emanuel’s wife will not have to appear to testify at tomorrow’s election board hearing challenging Emanuel’s Chicago residency, a hearing officer said today.

Burt Odelson, the lead attorney in the challenge, has dropped his bid to bring Amy Rule to Chicago, and hearing officer Joseph A. Morris said he had he heard nothing from other objectors that showed Rule had to be called.

[ *** End Of Update *** ]

* Rahm Emanuel’s campaign just released its own poll, which shows that Emanuel may be within sight of avoiding a runoff…

43 percent Emanuel
11 percent Carol Moseley Braun
10 percent Danny Davis
9 percent Gery Chico
8 percent Miguel Del Valle
7 percent James Meeks
1 percent Roland Burris
2 percent Other
7 percent Undecided

The poll was conducted December 1-8 of 1,020 likely voters and the MoE is 3.07 percent.

More…

Among blacks polled, Emanuel was at 39 percent to 21 percent for Davis, to 14 percent for Meeks, to 13 percent for Moseley Braun, to 3 percent for Chico, 2 percent for Burris and 7 percent at undecided.

Chicago City Clerk Miguel Del Valle is the top candidate of Hispanics surveyed, getting 37 percent of the Hispanic vote to 32 percent for Emanuel, 9 percent for Chico, 5 percent for Moseley Braun and everyone else under 4 percent. […]

From the Greenberg Quinlan memo: Emanuel’s “lead is built upon a very positive profile, with Emanuel by 91 percent of the voters, 54 percent offering warm or positive ratings and just 22 percent cool or negative ratings. Voters are much more mixed in their views of the other well known candidates including Moseley Braun, who garners net negative ratings (34 percent, 39 percent cool, 90 percent name identification), and Chico (25 percent warm, 22 percent cool, 65 percent name identification).”

* Meanwhile, Gery Chico claims his campaign raised $100,000 a day for three days straight…

“He’s about as good as anyone I’ve worked with, fund-raising,” said Ken Snyder, senior strategist for the campaign, who has helped with campaigns across the country and locally for Toni Preckwinkle and John Stroger. “He just works his heart out. There’s no easy way to do it. It’s just elbow grease. It can be a humble and humiliating experience even, but candidates have to do it. He works hard at it. He’s on the phone hours and hours and hours every day.”

Chico didn’t do a bad fundraising job when he ran for Senate, but he finished way out of the money when it came to actual votes. However, he’s definitely running the scrappiest campaign of all the others so far.

* Related…

* Q&A with the Rev. James Meeks: I’m going to give the Chicago Teachers Union one year to create a policy of establishing what is an effective teacher, what is an ineffective teacher, and how do we dismiss an ineffective teacher. If they don’t come up with a policy in a year, then I would ask the General Assembly for that policy. I think all teachers get a bum rap because of bad teachers. Teachers don’t want bad teachers either.