Posted on 02/12/2009 3:44:19 PM PST by STARWISE
Rahm Emanuel may have moved his office down Pennsylvania Avenue, but to stand in the hallways of the Capitol lately, it seems he never left.
And if anyone’s fingerprints are on the nearly $800 billion economic stimulus package being sorted out in Congress this week, they belong to Emanuel, the former Illinois House member who is now the White House chief of staff.
There he was on the morning before the House stimulus vote, bringing Blue Dogs back into the fold as he huddled with their leaders in House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s (D-Md.) hideaway off the House floor.
That was in addition to the unrequited courtship of Republican centrists by Emanuel, who was the No. 4 leader in the House before he resigned to become President Obama’s top aide.
There he was Friday afternoon in the office of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), tossing spending programs overboard until the package was light enough to support the heavy doubts of three Republican senators.
And as negotiations began Tuesday night, he was back in the familiar confines of Reid’s leadership suite. Emanuel has returned to his old stomping grounds at each step of the process, cutting deals and holding hands to keep Democrats together and win enough Republican support to get the package through the Senate. In doing so, Emanuel has engaged in the legislative process more than any other chief of staff anyone can remember.
It’s no wonder that Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii), discussing the stimulus this week, felt compelled to remind an interviewer, “Rahm Emanuel is no longer a member of the House of Representatives.”
To many, Emanuel’s hands-on approach has been effective, and is the sign of a blossoming relationship between the Obama White House and congressional Democrats.
One lawmaker even talked about him as though he’d been in the White House job for years, rather than just weeks. “I think he’s going to go down as one of the most effective chiefs of staff for any president because of his keen understanding of this institution,” said Rep. Dennis Cardoza (D-Calif.). “He’s trusted. He’s knowledgeable. He has a sense of direction for the country.”
But he hasn’t always been successful. His high-profile outreach to a dozen of his former Republican colleagues was stuffed back in his face when each of the centrists he courted rejected the bill.
“I wish maybe he had spent more time over here,” said Rep. Judy Biggert (R-Ill.), whom Emanuel recruited to support a Democratic bill to expand children’s health insurance when he was in the House. But she was not part of the group Emanuel invited to the White House.
And some think his profile has been too high, and risks the appearance that he’s trying to overshadow his boss. “He looks like he’s trying to be a co-equal to the president,” said a Democratic leadership aide. “There’s always grumbling about Rahm. The strategy of bi-partisanship blew up in his face.”
Another leadership aide said much of the grousing about the failure of the bipartisan approach was silenced by Obama’s tougher approach at the Democratic retreat, which many credit to Emanuel.
“He redeemed himself when Obama came to the issues of the conference and took a stronger line,” the aide said. Abercrombie said some of the criticism comes with working for someone else.
“When it works, it’s a reflection of the impressive persuasive powers of the president,” Abercrombie said. “When it doesn’t, it’s all Emanuel’s fault.”
Emanuel’s successful courtship of fiscally conservative Blue Dogs has been less publicized than the outreach to Republicans.
Blue Dogs were growing restless amid news reports of projects in the stimulus, such as the re-sodding of the National Mall, or that their demand to reinstate “statutory pay-go” wasn’t in the bill.
The fiscally conservative Democrats might not have been able to defeat the bill, but a large chunk of Democrats defecting on the top priority of a new Democratic president would have heaped insult on the injury inflicted by the GOP’s wall of opposition. So they huddled in the majority leader’s hideaway, and Emanuel pledged that they would see signs of Obama’s commitment to fiscal reform.
“He said, ‘You have a long-term concern about the future of the country. The only person who can reassure you is the president,’ ” said an attendee. “He kept the Blue Dogs on the reservation.”
After that, 11 Democrats voted against the stimulus bill, nine of them Blue Dogs. But none of them were leaders of the group and there was no mass defection. According to one Blue Dog source, Obama’s meeting with Blue Dogs on Tuesday night was a fulfillment of the commitment Emanuel made that day.
But if he was staving off a public-relations problem in the House, he faced the disaster of losing everything in the Senate. Republicans were winning the messaging battle, and the Republican votes needed to pass the bill weren’t forthcoming.
Sens. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) started discussions to resolve the impasse, and Reid took ownership of the negotiations. But Emanuel was his point of contact, a sounding board for Reid and a direct channel to Obama’s thinking.
“Reid probably talked to him five times before noon on Friday,” said a Senate aide. Then, when things got serious, Emanuel decamped to Reid’s office.
Accounts differ about his approach. Nelson told staffers Emanuel was “really quiet.” But Collins has said it was Emanuel who took out the ax to push spending cuts from around $63 billion to more like $100 billion.
“Then Rahm got involved, and a much better proposal came forward,” Collins told The Washington Post.
Liberal Democrats in the House were outraged by the cuts, particularly for school construction. But they showed no anger toward Emanuel for his role in crafting the Senate deal.
“You’ve got to keep the bill moving. Whatever he did to that end is all to the good,” Abercrombie said. “Once you get it to conference, anything’s possible.”
There he was Friday afternoon in the office of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), tossing spending programs overboard until the package was light enough to support the heavy doubts of three Republican senators.
And as negotiations began Tuesday night, he was back in the familiar confines of Reid’s leadership suite. Emanuel has returned to his old stomping grounds at each step of the process, cutting deals and holding hands to keep Democrats together and win enough Republican support to get the package through the Senate.
In doing so, Emanuel has engaged in the legislative process more than any other chief of staff anyone can remember.
It’s no wonder that Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii), discussing the stimulus this week, felt compelled to remind an interviewer, “Rahm Emanuel is no longer a member of the House of Representatives.”
Chicago patronage politics goes national. All that is needed is a big pot of money for the payoffs.
Maybe Gregg got a “whiff” of this guy in action and said to himself “I’ve got to get the hell out of here”, LOL.
"Follow the yellow brick road."
FOB FJB ballerina fairy.
Emanuel has the dead eyes of a cold blooded killer.
I actually know which one is more evil - Rahm or his boss. I guess it doesn’t matter - they agenda is evil.
He sure does. Wonder why.
Rahm only has 9 finger prints.
Wasnt his father in a radical leftist group?
;)
This coming from my congress-critter, former Gary Condit staffer who jumped into the primary when it became apparent that Condit could not be re-elected.
Cardoza quickly snuggled up into Pelosi's lap and passed all the necessary requirements to be an official lap-dog.
"Sit, Dennis"
"Speak, Dennis"
"Roll Over, Dennis"
Good Boy, Dennis!
Doesn’t he have his home in Chicago listed as a charity and he pays no property taxes? The only donation made by the charity was to his kids private school. How do you spell tuition?
Congress Doesn’t Have Stimulus Bill, But Lobbyists Do? [Mark Hemingway]
U.S. News:
We’re receiving E-mails from Capitol Hill staffers expressing frustration that they can’t get a copy of the stimulus bill agreed to last night at a price of $789 billion. What’s more, staffers are complaining about who does have a copy: K Street lobbyists. E-mails one key Democratic staffer: “K Street has the bill, or chunks of it, already, and the congressional offices don’t. So, the Hill is getting calls from the press (because it’s leaking out) asking us to confirm or talk about what we know—but we can’t do that because we haven’t seen the bill. Anyway, peeps up here are sort of a combo of confused and like, ‘Is this really happening?’” Reporters pressing for details, meanwhile, are getting different numbers from different offices, especially when seeking the details of specific programs.
Emmanuel is deep in the Blago affair, Obozo goes before the media & public lies thru his teeth to cover Emmanuel, and public still adores this fraud. Unbelievable! Both spread themselves thick with the clintoonian teflon. Obozo, the new Teflon Don.
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