Rahm Emanuel: Difference between revisions

Rahm I. Emanuel (born November 29 1959), an American politician, has been a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives since 2003, representing the 5th Congressional District of Illinois, which covers the northside of Chicago and parts of Cook County. Emanuel is chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which recruits and raises funds for Democratic congressional candidates. Should the Democratic Party regain control of the House, Emanuel is thought to be a leading candidate for the post of Majority Whip. Emanuel is noted for his strong partisan style and his fundraising prowess.

Emanuel was born in Chicago, Illinois to an Israeli pediatrician and social worker four months after they moved to the United States. Trained as a ballet dancer, Emanuel won a scholarship to the Joffrey Ballet but turned it down to attend Sarah Lawrence College^[1] where he graduated in 1981. He received a master's degree in Speech and Communication from Northwestern University in 1985. While still a student at Sarah Lawrence, he joined the congressional campaign of David Robinson of Chicago.

For a time Emanuel worked as a professional ballet dancer, and then became a backroom political staffer specializing in fundraising initially in Illinois campaigns and then nationally. He began his political career with the consumer rights organization Illinois Public Action. He went on to serve in a number of capacities in local and national politics, including working for liberal Democrat Paul Simon's 1984 election to the U.S. Senate, national campaign director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 1988, and senior advisor and chief fundraiser for Richard M. Daley's victorious campaign for mayor of Chicago in 1989.

During the 1991 Gulf War, Emanuel was a civilian volunteer in Israel, rust-proofing brakes on an army base in northern Israel.^[2]

He joined then-Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton's presidential primary campaign in 1991, serving as the campaign's Director of Finance. Emanuel insisted that Clinton schedule a lot of time for fundraising rather than campaigning in New Hampshire. After much dispute within the campaign about the issue, Clinton eventually agreed, embarking on an aggressive fundraising campaign across the nation. The fundraising paid off later, providing the campaign a vital buffer to keep buying television time as attacks on character issues threatened to swamp Clinton's campaign during the New Hampshire primary. Clinton's most serious primary rival, Paul Tsongas, later withdrew, citing a lack of campaign funds.

Following the campaign, Emanuel became a senior advisor to Bill Clinton at the White House from 1993 to 1998. In the White House, Emanuel was initially Assistant to the President for Political Affairs and then Senior Advisor to the President for Policy and Strategy. He was a leading strategist in the unsuccessful White House efforts to institute universal healthcare and many other Clinton initiatives.

He left the White House to accept a well-paid position in investment banking at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein in Chicago where he worked from 1999 to 2002.

The US House seat in the 5th District of Illinois was previously held by Rod Blagojevich, who resigned to successfully run for Governor of Illinois. His strongest opponent of the seven other candidates in the 2002 Democratic primary was former Illinois State Representative Nancy Kaszak, who had unsuccessfully opposed Blagojevich in the 1996 primary. The most controversial moment of the primary election came when Edward Moskal, president of the Polish American Congress, a political action committee endorsing Kaszak, called Emanuel a "millionaire carpetbagger" and falsely charged he had dual citizenship with Israel and had served in the Israeli Army. Moskal's comments were denounced as anti-Semitic by many, including Kaszak.^[3] Emanuel won the primary and easily defeated Republican candidate Mark Augusti in the general election.

Emanuel was named the Chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2005. Prior to his work for Clinton, he had been employed at the same Committee. His role at the DCCC is leading fundraising efforts to support the Democrats strategy to improve its poor level of representation in the Congress, it has been in the minority in the House since 1994. He has declared that in his new role "winning is everything." Indeed, Emanuel has urged Democratic candidates to adopt more "centrist" positions. The Committee's role is principally that of recruiting good candidates for the House and raising funds to assist new candidates and incumbents from the Democratic party. He has had, however, many disagreements over Democratic strategy with Democratic Chairman Howard Dean. Dean prefers a 50-state strategy, while Emanuel, in contrast, believes a more tactical approach is necessary to ensure victory in November.

Nicknamed "Rahmbo," the Congressman is well known for aggression and great intensity. He sent a rotting fish to a pollster whom he said sent inaccurate and poorly prepared research to him while working as national campaign director at the DCCC during the late 1980s.

He represents Chicago's north side, formerly the district of Democratic Congressman Dan Rostenkowski. Like Rostenkowski, Emanuel serves on the House Ways and Means Committee. He received 78% of the vote in the Democratic stronghold in the last election.

He has maintained a 100% pro-choice voting record and generally supports liberal Democratic positions in the House. However, Time magazine ran a story that contained critical accounts of Emanuel's management of the DCCC. Darcy Burner, a Democratic candidate described Emanuel as, "ruthless as any corporate chieftain" and blunt in their meeting, while others called him a, " lifelong control freak." The report described him as vying with Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader, and at odds with ex-Governor of Vermont Howard Dean, now the Chair of the Democratic National Committee. One of the most controversial claims in the article was that Emanuel vetoed the hiring of minority consultants.[1]. In an interview with Charlie Rose aired August 21, 2006, Emanuel acknowleged that Pilosi was the leader of the House and should remain so if the Democrats took over the House majority in the November 2006 elections.

Failure of the Democratic candidate to win the special election on June 6 2006 to replace disgraced Republican Congressman Duke Cunningham in California's 50th congressional district, led to calls of "DUMP RAHM EMANUEL" on Democratic websites citing his prejudices against minority consultants from the Afro-American and Hispanic communities, as well as his close relations with the right-leaning Democratic Leadership Council.[2]

On June 8, 2006, Representative Emanuel called Coulter a "hatemonger" on the floor of the House and urged his Republican colleagues to denounce her: "I must ask my colleagues on the other side of the aisle: Does Ann Coulter speak for you when she suggests poisoning ... Supreme Court Justices or slanders the 9/11 ... widows? If not, speak now. Your silence allows her to be your spokesman."[3][4]

In her June 14, 2006 column, Ms. Coulter referred to Representative Emanuel as "Rahm 'Don't Touch My Tutu' Emanuel" behind whom Hillary Clinton was "hiding" after she "beat a hasty retreat on her chubby little legs." Ms. Coulter continues, "Yes, the Democrats' pit bull, Rahm Emanuel, is a former ballerina. And they wonder why the concerted effort of the MSM (as we call the mainstream media) and the Democratic Party can't lay a finger on me. A ballerina. Hey, if the padded, silky shoe fits ... " [5]

Emanuel's wife Amy Rule, and their three children, Zachariah, Ilana and Leah, live in the north side of Chicago, in the neighborhood of Roscoe Village. His father, a pediatrician still practicing near Chicago, immigrated to the United States from Israel and spoke Hebrew with his son, when Emanuel was a boy. Emanuel, whose first name, Rahm, means "high" or "lofty" in Hebrew, and his wife are active members of a Modern Orthodox congregation in Chicago.

Bradley Whitford's character Josh Lyman on NBC television series The West Wing is based on Emanuel.^[1] His younger brother, Ari Emanuel, is a Hollywood agent and inspired Jeremy Piven's character Ari Gold on the HBO series Entourage.^[1] His older brother Ezekiel Emanuel is an oncologist and medical ethicist.

Emanuel is the co-author of THE PLAN: BIG IDEAS FOR AMERICA published by PublicAffairs Books in 2006. On their website (www.readtheplan.com), Emanuel and co-author Bruce Reed state that they wrote THE PLAN to "give Americans an answer" to the question of how the country can be turned around with "an innovative agenda" to become a "new social contract for America". Emanuel appeared on the Charlie Rose show on August 21, 2006 to discuss the book and proposals.

• Emanuel lost his right middle finger to a meat slicer as a teenager.^[1]

• Official website
• Voting record maintained by The Washington Post