Chicago, meet your new boss: The Rahmfather.

You can call him by his formal title, Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel. You can call him the Rahminator.

Or you might join the Daley brothers in rhythmic clapping in the bowels of Chicago’s political coliseum, as President Barack Obama beats syncopated time, shouting the chorus of hope and change:

“Rahmulus! Rahmulus! Rahmulus!”

Or not.

Yet no matter what you call him, no matter what you think of him, by winning Tuesday’s election without a messy runoff, Rahm Emanuel is boss of Chicago.

He’ll govern that way. It’s what was sold. It’s what is expected. The thing is, he’s smarter than the old boss, more talented, skillful, adept, more focused.

If one of Rahm’s relatives ever receives $70 million in City Hall pension funds to invest in a real estate deal, he won’t be able to say that he didn’t know what was going on.

No one would believe him.

Rahm will begin making moves almost immediately, what with the city’s finances in disastrous shape. And he will change minds.

This is no game. And becoming mayor of Chicago isn’t his last stop. It’s one of his first. Rahm’s last stop might just be back in the White House, but not as another chief of staff. Don’t think it hasn’t crossed his mind.

The first thing he’ll do is reorganize the Chicago City Council. Yes, the council is technically a legislative body, and Emanuel will be chief executive, and civics teachers would tell you that one branch of government is supposed to serve as a check on the ambitions of the other.

But the city wanted a strongman and it got one. Over the past 20 years, Daley decimated what remained of the ward organizations and installed his own patronage armies. Now there are only a few truly talented aldermen left in the council.

The North Side bosses will ascend. Look for Ald. Patrick O’Connor, 40th, and former state Sen. James DeLeo, D-How You Doin?, to flex their muscle under a Mayor Emanuel.

The new mayor may take a trophy head or two, perhaps that of Ald. Ed Burke, 14th, and put that on his wall, offering it up to friendly pundits as evidence of change.

What Tuesday’s victory prevents is outside examination of the City Hall books. That lack of scrutiny is what Mayor Richard Daley wanted, after two decades of spending Chicago into near-bankruptcy with all that cronyism and favoritism.

Emanuel’s victory completes an interesting switcheroo, with Rich Daley announcing his retirement, Rahm stepping down as White House chief of staff, and mayoral brother Billy Daley stepping into Rahm’s old job.

Some might call it cynical. But with a 2012 presidential re-election campaign under way, others might call it smart politics the Chicago Way.

Emanuel could have had the Daley endorsement if he had wanted it. But he didn’t want it. The mayor had become toxic with that parking meter mess, with motorists paying quarters and quarters and more quarters, reportedly enriching investors in Abu Dhabi. Rahm wisely didn’t want Tuesday’s election to become a referendum on Daley.

So Rahm had the best of both worlds. He received the Daley support, meaning establishment Chicago support, after behind-the-scenes discussions brought the elites to Rahm’s side. And he received Obama’s tacit endorsement, undercutting black support for former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun, to avoid a runoff with Gery Chico.

And now Rahm can make his own moves. Months ago, he and I were at a diner having breakfast near his campaign office, and I told him I would write that the campaign was his to lose, and I did.

But there was also this nagging feeling that his candidacy was merely about papering over the gaping financial holes left by Daley.

Rahm surprised me with a bit of honesty and clarity.

“There were a lot of decisions, or the lack of making a decision, that have led to this very bad financial situation that wasn’t just recession-driven,” he said about all that red ink covering the city’s books.

“We have to make big, big, changes, because just putting more quarters in a broken machine ain’t gonna work.”

Broken machine? Quarters? The reference to Daley’s ridiculous parking meter deal was unmistakable, and I thought his metaphorical comment was a slip of the tongue.

“No, it’s not,” he explained. “It’s exactly the kind of metaphor I was going for.”

Now that the campaign is over, the toadies will bend and smooch, bend and smooch. We’ll be treated to gushing media profiles of Emanuel and desperate pleas for access, like the recent epistles in some of the national magazines.

But Emanuel got his fill of such gushing praise two years ago, when he was named as Obama’s chief of staff. Entire forests were killed to praise Rahm, in the hopes of obtaining access.

Then, hardly a word was written about the hundreds of City Hall knuckle-draggers — their salaries paid by taxpayers — who were sent out to pound the precincts for Rahm in the 2002 congressional election and put him in office.

But even with all that inevitable smooching, what’s refreshing is that Rahm is too intelligent to enjoy it.

“That’s the thing about Rahm that reporters don’t get,” said a friend who worked with him for years. “He hates all that butt-kissing. He’s got things to do.”

Like a broken city to boss. And the Daleys to satisfy, and a president to re-elect. It won’t be easy.

Good luck, Rahmfather.