Rahm Emanuel Has State Of The Union Address Advice For President Obama

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel offered some friendly advice to his former boss President Obama on Tuesday night's State of the Union Address: talk about the future, not the past.

Emanuel made the comments during a panel discussion late last week at the University of Chicago, commemorating David Axelrod's appointment to head the school's politics institute.

"Make it all about the future, because elections are all about tomorrow. They're not about the past," Emanuel said, according to WBEZ. "If you are going forward looking through the rear view mirror, they'll catch you on that, and you'll have an accident."

Obama's speech is expected to focus on 2012 being a "make or break" moment for the American middle class. He is also expected to lay out plans to rebuild the economy in a way that is built to last.

"The State of the Union is your one last time to put out the blueprint and the architecture of what [he] will do in the second term," Emanuel said, according to NBC Chicago. "If he's big and goes to his strengths as an inspirational leader, he plays to what I think are his more dominant strengths."

The State of the Union address will take place Tuesday at 8 p.m. CST. Stay tuned to HuffPost Politics for live coverage and analysis of Obama's speech.

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Comments

[kollerbrian]

05:11 PM on 01/25/2012

Please to be a US citzizen, This guy thinks we can do better than make ourselves into a crowd of who is better than who and for what if not to serve the greater glory of what it takes to win. The rules of contest that set apart winners from losers have been sorely contested and in need of new process. This is not the big easy, this is the big uneasy. Can we get into the future with a more stable economy and stay as we are ? The economic future holds fewer suprises than ever before and to be in the game to win people have to be the cause for more solidarity and less contest of what it takes to get there. Winning is great ; the process to get there is not. A better kind of citizen, with a kind of soliderity to define our political well being has the best potential for winning a future we can agree on. Soliderity makes the best standard of living for the most people all we need do is define it. Lets make a future that looks like we do, Brian A Koller

[bleedingheartlibertarian]

10:50 PM on 01/24/2012

America has always been the big prize for the Bolsheviks. Close to success , so close.

[osage1948]

07:41 PM on 01/24/2012

UNLESS YOU ARE A "ONE PERCENTER", voting for anyone but Obama is financial suicide!

He may not be everything we hoped he be, but he sure as hell is much, much more FOR working class Americans than Mitt and Newt are undeniably AGAINST them.

[Bude]

06:36 PM on 01/24/2012

Emanuel helped get Obama in this mess, the last thing Obama needs is advice from him!

[hmdjr]

07:20 PM on 01/24/2012

Agree.

[jakeriley]

10:43 PM on 01/24/2012

You mean the mess that Republicans created?

[molemealso]

06:31 PM on 01/24/2012

Ant the advice is, blame Bush

[YourMindsEye]

06:09 PM on 01/24/2012

He has to make it about tomorrow, because he has failed miserably in the past. With Obama, and the way he flip-flops, tomorrow never comes.

[antonymous]

05:38 PM on 01/24/2012

That's an awful lot of words for "throw money at yuppies, blame unions for budget hole."

[47th]

08:00 PM on 01/24/2012

That is very funny, and very true!

[jsgaetano]

05:06 PM on 01/24/2012

"Advice from Rahm Emmanuel" is why Rahm Emmanuel isn't in the White House any longer.