Emanuel hoping for a "better outcome" in vice-presidential debate

Mayor Rahm Emanuel declared a winner in the first presidential debate hours before it started and stuck to the script even after Republican Mitt Romney got the better of President Barack Obama.

On the eve of the vice-presidential debate between incumbent Democrat Joe Biden and Congressman Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), Emanuel is dropping all pretenses.

Asked to predict the outcome, the mayor said, “It’ll be the same prediction I had in the last one, but I hope with a better, different outcome.”

Last week, 68 million people watched Obama’s lackluster performance against Romney. Emanuel’s prediction turned out to be wrong. He had already declared the President a winner hours before the all-important face-off, reprising the speech he delivered to the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte on the President’s behalf.

“The President won. The President won. I’ll give you my assessment right now,” said Emanuel, the former White House chief-of-staff who stepped down recently as co-chairman of Obama’s re-election campaign to serve as a chief fundraiser for the President.

“He won because, through his presidency, he has addressed the concerns of the middle-class. He will continue to speak to that. And Mitt Romney has shown over the time since he’s run for the Presidency and been the nominee that he is tone-deaf to the concerns of the middle-class.”

The mayor stuck with the party line, even after watching the debate at the South Side home of Ald. Michelle Harris (8th).

But, now that Obama’s performance has been roundly panned by political pundits and everyday voters and Romney is rising in the polls, Emanuel apparently feels free to tell the world how he really feels.