Rahm’s Not So Secret Plans
Say, have you heard that Rahm wants to return to Congress in two years so he can eventually run for Speaker? Sure you have, because we’ve covered it here. But it’s sure interesting the way folks in Chicago treat it as a widely known fact, yet one you can’t speak about.
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is interested in potentially returning to Chicago someday to reclaim the congressional seat he held until a month ago, a candidate running to replace him said Sunday.
When 11 Democrats at the first 5th Congressional District forum were asked whether they have had direct or indirect conversations with Emanuel about being a "place holder" for the seat, only state Rep. John Fritchey (D-Chicago) said he had.
"I spoke with Rahm maybe a week or two after he had accepted the job of chief of staff," Fritchey said. "At that time, he had commented to me that he may be interested in running one day again for the seat. I told him that should I be fortunate enough to run, and should I be fortunate enough to win the seat, I would look forward to campaigning against him."
The state lawmaker then appeared to sense he might have been a bit too open about the conversation he had with Emanuel, who represented the district from 2003 through 2009, before leaving to work for President Barack Obama.
"If I’m going to put words in anybody’s mouth, it’s not going to be Rahm’s," he said. "So, let me phrase it as exactly as I can for a conversation that took place three months ago. But that was a statement that he may be interested in running for the seat at some point down the road." [my emphasis]
Oops. I guess you’re not allowed to speak the truth about Rahm in Chicago, huh?
Add in the little difficulty that "a week or two after he had accepted" the COS job would put it in the November 13 to 20 timeframe–or precisely the time frame when Blago seemed to be preparing to send John Wyma out to talk to Rahm about just these plans and when Michael Sneed was reporting on it. But that was all before it was revealed that whatever conversations Rahm had with Blago were helpfully taped by the FBI, after which point it became important to cover up any of those conversations.
No wonder Fritchey thought better of admitting that he had had such conversations with Rahm.
Is it commonplace for Presidential COS’s to state from the get go that they’re only going to serve for 2 years and then vamoose?
Can Rahm regain his seniority after a 2 year absence?
Will Rahm succeed in alienating Obama within 2 years?
Actually, considering the huge egos Obama has collected for his cabinet, its a pretty sure bet that not all of them will last 2 years.
Bob in HI
I don’t like him. If there are problems (and there are right now) in the Obama administration, I am sure that they can be linked back to Rahm.
In my opinon he is equal to or worse than Rove, and that’s not good!
I hope he leaves next month and quickly heads back to Chicago or New York to make more money. The party is in trouble if he takes Pelosi’s job. Glad to see her go, but Speaker of the House??? No way.
Mr Emmanuel does one thing really well; i.e., Kicking the shit out of Rcons…Personally, I don’t care where he does it, long as he does it.
Started on the Firedoglake reader opinion survey. No listing of “End Drug War” on dropdown menu. Aborted same.
Winners Smoke Weed.
http://thetimchannel.com/?p=378
Enjoy.
Two words.
Tammy Duckworth.
That only wasted $3,000,000 of the DCCC’s money.
Heckuva job, Emmanuelie.
Just hope PBO is not shy with a pad of *pink slips*.
Hoping some are already made out in his pocket.
Rahm should be in prison.
Remember Tony Coelho?
Hopefully Rahm will be made irrelevant or exposed as too much in Israel’s pocket for this country’s good.
I think all these staffing problems: Rahm, Clinton retreads, senate colleagues; stem from a young, inexperienced, prez with no contacts in important places. You can be sure that the initial chaos is only the tip of the iceberg.
I agree about the Clinton retreads. Obama embraced them despite the pretty obvious baggage that most of them carried and I doubt he was so blind that he didn’t notice that they had that baggage. At the same time, you have to wonder about guys like Daschle and Geithner who didn’t do due diligence into their own finances before accepting these positions.
As for Daschle, TPM points out the close personal relationship with Obama, who picked up some of his staff as Daschle was leaving. But that’s more of a symptom than an explanation. Obama doesn’t know many people who are even potential candidates for the jobs he needs to fill. Picking so many senators is another symptom. The pattern is pretty clear by now.
His picks know they have leverage, which is why they conveniently don’t reveal inconvenient facts.
Rahm supported the invasion of Iraq, has repeated unsubstantiated claims about Iran, thinks the illegal settlements on Palestinian lands are just fine. Too much of a war hawk for me. I hope Rahm eventually “cheney’s” himself
Another Illinois pol (thinking Blago here) only looking out for Number 1? Well, I’m surprised.
The problem is that in two years Obama’s stimulus will be running out of steam and Summers and Geithner’s attempts to suck up to/bail out the financial industry will continue to founder so Emanuel may not have it so easy winning a seat let alone seeing himself crowned king of the House.
Hmmm. Inexperienced. No close advisors who are experienced enough to shepherd Obama thru the minefields. I’m halfway thru Angler. Wonder if there will be a Cheney in Obama’s life.
The simple fact of the matter is, as this whole bipartisan pipe dream continues to disintegrate, Rahmy’s going to play a more and more important role doing what he does best – turning rancourous partisanship to the president’s advantage by ruthlessly crushing the significant organs of House (and Senate) rethugs. I for one welcome him in this role. We’ll just haev to see what this will mean for Rahm’s return to a political career…
I’m no better at reading Obama’s mind than anyone else (probably worse). But I have observed that there’s been a constant theme about how Obama really doesn’t mean what he says/does, followed by a litany of excuses, like he just moved to the right to get elected. My evaluation is that he had always been what he said he was. His right-leaning policies were always apparent, for example.
Applying the general principle to bipartisanship would infer that he won’t stop trying. He’s talked about it constantly from primaries to elections. He certainly should have learned about how impossible the Rs are from his short senate career, yet he tried it anyhow. The evidence would seem to be contrary to your hypothesis.
I don’t disagree with you, from an ideological perspective the president is committed to his post-partisan rhetoric, but I also suspect he hired Rahm for a reason – to do what needs to be done to more the president’s agenda forward outside of the ideological/rhetorical domain. Rahm’s not an ideologue, and I can see only one reason why he’s in the COS slot.
Obama’s not a progressive.. never was, never well be. He’s transparent in many respects, and I’m not sure I agree with you about him not meaning what he says. Where his message is centrist and inclusive, he means it.. he really does. Where we progressives choose to misread him as a progressive, we’ll be disappointed but it’ll also be our own fault. This being said, I still think he’ll help our cause more than he will hurt it, in many great respects.
Rahm’s job, though, I’m convinced its a different one: to steamroll the president’s agenda through the legislative process by pounding rethugs into submission behind the scenes. That agenda may not be a progressive agenda, but, still, in my book, rethugs getting pounded is an end in itself.
My hypothesis is that he hired Rahm because he doesn’t know a lot of people who can do the jobs he needs to fill.
We’ll see.
Scuse my excessively complex locution. I think he means what he say/does. I was trying to point out that many other’s don’t, and that they are making a mistake in not taking Obama at his word, imo.
I guess I don’t see the relevance? Why does it matter if Rahm runs for Congress again in 2 years? He’ll either win or he won’t, most likely he will, Obama will get another Chief of Staff, and life will go on. I can understand being hesitant about him becoming Speaker, but that’s far from a foregone conclusion. And I have to admit, part of me warms to the idea because at least he’s a fighter, and we have precious few of those among Congressional Democrats right now.
As long as Emanuel wasn’t aware or interested in Blago’s plan to override the election and wasn’t denying he might want to run again someday, I don’t see a problem either.
Fritchey said he didn’t want to speak for Emanuel (who would?), but that didn’t stop him from answering the question to the best of his recollection. If Emanuel mentioned it to Fritchey, it sounds like it wasn’t much of a secret.
I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: I can’t see anyone outside of Blago thinking that aligning yourself with an unpopular Governor to override an election and deny people their vote would be a good idea.
John Wyma’s testimony should be interesting… The Tribune reported recently that the “nothing but appreciation” comment was made through Wyma, and IIRC, he was reported to have started cooperating with the Feds in late October or early November.
Oops. I guess you’re not allowed to speak the truth about Rahm in Chicago, huh?
Or much of anything else: Omertà City-on-the-Lake. And the few weird outcroppings of Illinois venality and, um, eccentricity that we’ve seen so far are just the tip of something, too. My guess has been that Rahm’s job is to deal with what lies beneath, since he knows the territory pretty well. And if that’s more than a two-year job then we really are in deep trouble.
Another possibility: Rahm’s letting it be known that he will be around a long while and will make extra sure to knife anyone who crosses him now.