Rahm Emanuel

I met Rahm Emanuel in 2003, shortly after he had been elected to Congress from the 5th Congressional District in Illinois, where I live. At the time I was manager of the Social Security Office in his district, and he invited me to a little "getting to know you" meeting which included Rahm, a constituent services staffer from his local office, and another SSA manager.

The 5th Congressional District is usually a safe district for whatever Democrat gets the nomination; the famous Chicago political machine takes over from there. It's not a totally safe district, though, because there's a certain torch-and-pitchfork element in the electorate that rises up from time-to-time, as they did in 1994, when Dan Rostenkowski, who represented the district, was indicted in connection with the House Post Office Scandal. In that year, Rostenkowski deservedly lost his seat to a twerp named Michael Flanagan, about whom the least said the better.

In 1996 Flanagan lost to Rod Blagojevich, the son-in-law of a local alderman, who in turn gave up the seat in 2002 to run for governor, the position he now holds. All of Illinois is waiting for the second shoe to fall in the Tony Rezko scandal, and that shoe will not be named Obama, it will be named Blagojevich.

So in 2002 Rahm Emanuel, a Clinton White House veteran who was fresh from collecting $18 million in three years as an investment banker, got the Democratic nomination for Blagojevich's House seat, and thus the seat.

Emanuel has a reputation, apparently earned, as someone who spends his day screaming and swearing at people. [Read his Wikipedia entry to get a flavor of it.] Management by intimidation is the best some people can come up with. And he made no secret of his wish to eventually become Speaker of the House.

Emanuel did not scream and swear at me. He was, in fact, extremely cordial. Although I had prepared to offer him the benefit of my deep thoughts on Social Security policy, the purpose of the meeting was just to establish connections with the local federal offices (of which we were the only one). He spent an hour with us, and promised to make the meetings regular. Of course, we never heard from him again; and although I would have enjoyed meeting with him again, I can't say I question his judgment in that.

So now Rahm Emanuel is going to serve as Obama's Chief of Staff. John Boehner, the House Minority Leader, does not think the appointment of such a highly partisan person bodes well for bi-partisan action.

But I think it might. Is there an unmentioned purpose in this appointment? Is it possible that Obama is purposely removing Emanuel from the House?

Anyway, now we'll have an open seat again in the 5th Congressional District. And guess whose name is the first to be mentioned for it? The daughter of the same alderman that plopped Blagojevich (his son-in-law, did I mention?) into the seat.

Ah, Chicago.