Obama Avoids Rahm While in Chicago

President Obama and his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel were joined at the hip for almost two years. But they didn’t even appear together as Obama visited Chicago Thursday to help Democratic candidates for senator and governor (Alexi Giannoulias and Pat Quinn respectively), NBC Chicago reports.

Emanuel is running for mayor in Chicago in what could be a crowded Democratic field, and Obama doesn’t want to play favorites before the mid-term elections, though he has expressed his confidence in Rahm.

Given the president’s woeful approval ratings – 46 percent Thursday, according to Gallup – Emanuel may have been happy to avoid Obama. Even in his hometown of Chicago, Obama’s approval rating has dropped to 51 percent from 59 percent last year, according to a Chicago Tribune/WGN poll.