A Rising Star Could Leave The House

The Almanac of American Politics' profile of Rahm Emanuel, Obama's reported pick for White House chief of staff, describes a congressman who's risen nearly as quickly up the political ladder as his future boss. Excerpts follow:

Emanuel was born in Chicago and grew up in Wilmette, the son of an Israeli immigrant. He graduated from Sarah Lawrence, got a master's degree in communications from Northwestern and began his career with Illinois Public Action, a consumer rights group. California Representative Tony Coelho recruited him to join the staff of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 1985. He worked for Mayor Richard M. Daley, before joining Bill Clinton's presidential campaign in 1991. He was rewarded with a high-level staff post in the Clinton White House, where he gained wide respect for his political savvy but drew criticism, even from allies, for an arrogant and abrasive style. In 1999 he left the White House and returned to Chicago where he made millions as an investment banker.
His decision to run for Congress was greeted with disdain by those who had toiled for years in the vineyards of Chicago politics. His strongest opponent was former state Representative Nancy Kaszak, who lost the 1996 primary to Rod Blagojevich; she portrayed Emanuel as an interloper with few ties to the district. But Emanuel had his own local connections. He was endorsed by Daley and by labor unions (despite his support of NAFTA), and he raised large sums--nearly $2 million for the primary--from his extensive Chicago and national Democratic fundraising networks. Emanuel benefited from controversy two weeks before the primary, when a local Polish-American leader supporting Kaszak charged that Emanuel served in the Israeli army in 1991 during the Gulf War and suggested he had dual loyalties. The charge was false--Emanuel is a U.S. citizen who volunteered as a civilian at an Israeli supply base--and Kaszak's campaign was thrown off-stride.
Emanuel won 50%-39%, with large majorities on the Lakefront and in Lincoln Park. He carried all of the 13 wards in the district, except for the heavily Polish 30th. In the general election, Emanuel faced a feisty challenger who attacked him as overly ambitious, but the result was never in doubt; he won 67%-29%. That made him the district's fourth congressman in a decade; before he was indicted and eventually served prison time, Rostenkowski served this area for 36 years.
Moving quickly up the ranks in the House, Emanuel cut an unusually high-profile figure. Even before winning election in 2002, he strategized for the national party, met with the national media and sought a prime committee assignment: Rosty's old haunt at Ways and Means. Although he was delayed for two more years--freshmen seldom get on Ways and Means--his aggressiveness, political skills and fundraising prowess quickly made him a congressman to watch. "He's very strategic, very good at message, smart on the legislative process, and disciplined," said Democrat Jan Schakowsky, who represents the neighboring 9th District.
He also showed skill in working across the aisle. He cosponsored with Representative Gil Gutknecht the House-passed bill allowing Americans to import prescription drugs from other nations. "Few members here have Rahm's energy, or know what reporter to talk to at The New York Times," Gutknecht marveled. NRCC chairman Tom Reynolds became Emanuel's chief co-sponsor of a proposal to spend billions of dollars to clean up the Great Lakes. "He came to me, and I liked his concept," Reynolds said. "I think that Hillary [Rodham Clinton] told him he should get to know me."

In January 2005, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi appointed him as the DCCC chairman to succeed Robert Matsui, who had died. Emanuel thus chaired the committee on which he had once been a staffer. He quickly imposed his take-no-prisoners approach on the committee, allowing nothing to stand in his way of gaining the House majority. With the popularity of President Bush and Republicans in decline because of the war in Iraq and the federal government's weak response to Hurricane Katrina, he recruited actively to expand the playing field of competitive House contests. With his promises of party support came demands that candidates meet benchmark requirements for fundraising, local news clips and a campaign field operation.
Emanuel's demand for more financial support from the national party led to a bitter confrontation in which Emanuel complained that Howard Dean was spending too much money on his "50 state" strategy and not enough to win the House in 2006; the DCCC chairman seemed to be prepared to blame the DNC chairman if Democrats failed to capture the House. This was another element of Emanuel's hard-edged tactical skills, which combined with his total commitment and seemingly inexhaustible energy to give the DCCC the aura of a presidential campaign. "He's brilliant, he's articulate, he's politically astute, and he's as cold-blooded as I need him to be to make the decisions," Pelosi told National Journal in May 2006. The Chicago Tribune profiled him as "a portrait in power of a brutally effective taskmaster."
Meanwhile, Emanuel did not ignore the policy debate. With friend and former White House colleague Bruce Reed, he coauthored The Plan, a book filled with mostly centrist Democratic proposals on how to fix the nation's problems and published three months before the 2006 election. He has called for sweeping tax reform to reduce the complexity of the tax code and lower rates for the middle class; ironically, it was Rostenkowski in 1986 who was instrumental in enacting the most recent major tax reform law.
In the usually back-slapping Illinois delegation, Emanuel had a testy relationship with then-Speaker Dennis Hastert, which began in 1986 when he waged an aggressive fight as a DCCC aide against Hastert's election to an open House district and continued with his confrontational rhetoric after he was elected to his own seat.
Emanuel's stock skyrocketed after Election Night, and he faced pressure to decide quickly what leadership post he wanted in the new majority. Allies had urged that he run for majority whip, a job for which he was well-suited because of its emphasis on both policy and arm-twisting. But Democratic Caucus chairman James Clyburn already had moved to claim the whip position, and Emanuel was reluctant to challenge the respected Clyburn, a past chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus. So, with strong encouragement from Pelosi and her agreement to strengthen the post, he ran without opposition to replace Clyburn as chairman of the Democratic Caucus. He quickly became a top strategist, spokesman and enforcer for the new majority. With each of the top three Democratic leaders about 20 years older than him, Emanuel is well-positioned to become Speaker within the next decade if he is willing to be patient.