Are you ready to rumble? Looks like we have a candidate.

“What happened to the hundreds of children from closed schools who never made it the welcoming schools on the West and South Sides?” Fioretti said.

It's cold and gloomy outside. But I'm smiling ear to ear. Here's why.

Ald. Bob Fioretti just gave a powerful speech at the City Club. It was a solid left hook to Rahm's jaw and sounded to everyone like the opening salvo in the 2015 race for mayor. And guess what? He received a standing O from not only CTU Pres. Karen Lewis, but from the suit-and-tie business folks as well. It looks like it's not just the 99% that are fed up with Rahm's arrogance, bullying, divisiveness, and mismanagement.

From the Sun-Times:

 Ald. Bob Fioretti (2nd) on Monday accused Mayor Rahm Emanuel of presiding over the “widening of Chicago into two cities” and hinted strongly at a race for mayor. With Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis cheering him on from the City Club audience, Fioretti unveiled a liberal, pro-union agenda that would make newly-elected New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio proud.

From DNAInfo:

Fioretti's speech was met with a standing ovation from the crowd of local business leaders. In his keynote speech, the 2nd Ward alderman reflected on his seven years in office — and especially on the Emanuel administration's last three years at the helm.

"There are the kind of problems that are preventable: the kind that those in the Emanuel administration either chose to create or stumbled into without thinking through the impacts."

Fioretti called the mental health clinic closures "inexcusable" and added it to a long list of "ill-founded policy decisions" he said point to "a basic issue of competency" within the Emanuel administration.

"If you turn your back on communities, you shouldn't be mayor," he said. "If you close schools in communities when 20,000 people come out, you shouldn't be mayor. If all you're concerned about is raising the money to fend off anybody that's going to run against you, you have a problem as mayor.

Fioretti read from poet Coval's "Two Cities"

 In closing, Fioretti read an excerpt from poet Kevin Coval's response to a recent episode of CNN's "Chicagoland":

"Rahm Emanuel is building a Second City. One white, one black. One for the rich, one for the poor. One for private schools, one for closed schools. A new Chicago for the saved and the damned. Gold Coast heavens and low-end hells."

Are you ready to rumble? Yes indeed.