At a blustery Wednesday morning press conference in front the concrete jungle that doubles as the Cook County jail, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart abruptly ended his short-lived bid for Mayor of Chicago.

While Dart never officially entered the campaign – he cancelled a rally to announced his candidacy last week – he posed the most formidable threat to former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. After 22 years of the Daley-ocracy, Dart’s posturing and subsequent departure leaves this race lacking excitement. Rahm Emanuel needs only to conquer a residency challenge to ensure he makes it to a runoff where he’ll summarily defeat any challenger. It’ll be as easy as it was telling mutinous conservative Democrats to go screw themselves was in his last job.

There’s no denying Dart’s unofficial campaign didn’t kick off with the same well-executed triple salchow Emanuel’s did. The cancelled rally married with a Cook County employee passing out fliers weeks after Dart’s sheriffs mistakenly invaded a couple’s Southwest-side home isn’t the perfect backdrop to launch a campaign to replace Chicago political royalty.

But with Joe Trippi on his side – no matter what the initial polling said – Dart could’ve beaten Rahm if he wanted to. His term as sheriff and his stand against foreclosing homes owned by irresponsible leaches (banks) endeared him to the Hispanic and black communities of the South and West sides. Now that black officials snubbed Rev. James Meeks, Dart certainly could’ve carried the non-white vote, making him a more-than-formidable adversary to Rahm’s fundraising machine.

It made sense to run too. Dart will never be a kin maker like Rev. Meeks unless he pulls off a coup himself. Two weeks ago the field offered a wealth of political riches. The possibilities were endless. But like neatly organized dominos the names started dropping one-by-one and as each contender elected to stay out of the ring, Dart looked like he had a real shot at the title.

Instead Dart fled the arena because he couldn’t reconcile “running for mayor and being a father and husband.” There is no doubt family concerns aren’t his main reason for bowing out before the starter’s gun fires. But I have serious doubts Dart saw some internal polls Trippi and Co. compiled and decided his numbers were so miserly low his eventually electoral number would embarrass his office and beleaguer his personal reputation. And even if he didn’t poll well among African-Americans and Latinos, are they really excited about Rahm Emanuel running for mayor? If they are, someone should send a press release to let someone know.

In the final analysis, Dart simply didn’t have the drive.

All great men share a singular purpose that causes them to obsess about and reorganize their lives around their goals. To their detriment sometimes, these men will do anything to win no matter how badly the odds are stacked against them. Clinton did it in ’92, Bush did in ’00 and Obama did it in ’08.

But for Dart, being mayor was a casual infatuation. It was the seemingly untouchable girl you walk by on campus every once in a while. You think about talking to her and maybe asking her out for coffee but in your heart-of-hearts you know you will never date her.

That press conference Wednesday morning was so riffled with angst and self-indignation, the peppery Dart revealed our expectations for him were misplaced. We should always applaud a man for putting his family before his politics. Yet, the normally touchy-feely good-guy sheriff the city swooned over seemed disgruntled. Like Jake Lamotta, Dart had a shot to be a contender. But he threw the fight and turned himself into a never-was and never-will-be.

Jason Seher is a Medill senior. He can be reached at [email protected].