President Obama's first chief of staff flew back to Washington this week, but he didn't come to talk about politics.

Rahm Emanuel, now the mayor of Chicago, spoke at the U.S. Conference of Mayors today about his efforts to train community college students for jobs upon graduation. Any talk of the presidential race - the GOP primary debate, Mitt Romney's taxes - would have to wait for another time.

"If you're looking for a story, I'm not here to help you," the mayor told ABC News before his speech at the Capital Hilton Hotel. "I'm here to talk about community colleges. That's my quote."

Emanuel's 15-minute speech was received enthusiastically by the mayors and their staffs in the hotel's large ballroom, just a couple of miles from his old office at the White House. He rushed out afterward to fly back to Chicago because of a snowstorm, according to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

"The community-college-for-economic-growth is something that has been on the sidelines and ignored for too long if you want the economy to grow," Emanuel said in his speech.