With polls showing Democrats increasingly within striking distance of taking back the House of Representatives, Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, the point man in the Democratic effort, is traveling the country, raising money and stumping for candidates at a frenetic pace.
Two years ago, most analysts believed Democrats had virtually no chance of retaking the House. But with the botched response to Hurricane Katrina, the mounting deaths in Iraq and the congressional page scandal, among other Republican problems, the pressure is on Emanuel, as the man responsible for electing Democrats to the House, to bring home the victory on Nov. 7.
Emanuel now must make difficult decisions about how to allocate money, given that more races than expected are proving competitive. Every decision brings complaints and second-guessing.
Twenty-eight days before Election Day, Emanuel, 46, was on a western swing through Arizona, New Mexico and Washington state. Outside a downtown law firm in Phoenix, he paces back and forth along a terra cotta walkway lined with palm trees, a cell phone glued to his ear.
“Protect the investment in Iowa!” he yells at an aide back in Washington. Switching phones with his press secretary, he greets the Democratic candidate for the Florida seat formerly held by the disgraced Mark Foley with a hearty “Hello, Congressman Mahoney, ” though Timothy Mahoney has yet to win.
A new conservative group with plans to spend $1 million in advertising against nine of his candidates is fueling Emanuel’s liberal use of obscenities as he tries to gauge the impact between meetings.
Since House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California asked Emanuel to be chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee a year and a half ago, he has raised roughly $36 million, taken 48 trips, and sent about 400 Eli’s cheesecakes from Chicago as thank-you presents to candidates and donors.
Back when he took over the committee, in January 2005, few people thought the Democrats could overcome the Republicans’ formidable advantages. Republicans had more money. Republicans also had strengthened their hold on congressional districts, redrawing lines to shut out Democratic challengers.
The election is still three weeks away, but opinion polls suggest it is at least possible that Democrats are on the brink of a historic comeback and could win the 15 seats they need to regain the majority. At the center is Emanuel, the tough-minded Chicagoan who has helped position Democrats to take advantage of the Republican missteps.
A comparison to LBJ
“He’s the most able Democratic strategist who happens to be a member of Congress since Lyndon Johnson,” said Paul Begala, the Democratic strategist who worked with Emanuel to help make Bill Clinton president in 1992.
Political analyst Stuart Rothenberg said Emanuel also has benefited from good luck.
“Let’s be totally dispassionate about this. He came along at the right place at the right time. He’s catching a wave and looks brilliant,” said Rothenberg, who has been predicting Democratic gains of 15 to 20 seats since August. “It’s harder to look brilliant if the wave is in your face. It’s hard to look brilliant if the environment isn’t favorable.”
Although Rothenberg and other political analysts are predicting that Democrats will take back the House after 12 years of Republican control, Emanuel, who once worked as a lowly regional political aide at the DCCC when he was 25, refuses to stop and savor the notion.
He said he regularly wakes up at 3 a.m. thinking about what he needs to do. Begala worries that Emanuel is losing weight. His 10-year-old son recently begged him to stop talking on the phone to candidates while tossing a football back and forth.
“He’s extremely nervous,” said a senior House Democratic leadership aide who confers with Emanuel regularly. “He sees all the problems, he keeps thinking of all the things he needs to do and he’s fearful of people making mistakes. He’s not sunning himself on the beach because we have a double-digit lead.”
In fact, Emanuel tells Jewish leaders gathered in support of Tucson Democrat Gabrielle Giffords, “I live in fear all the time.”
And on the terrace of a sprawling home in Paradise Valley, Emanuel tells several donors to Harry Mitchell, the Democrat challenging Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.), that while the numbers may be up, there is still time for them to come down.
“Someone can make a mistake in a debate and say, `I’m for privatizing Social Security,'” he said, grimly imagining the worst.
Recent revelations about sexually explicit electronic messages sent by Foley to underage congressional pages and former pages, and GOP leaders’ failure to act quickly to stop it, are serving to depress the Republican base when voters’ regard for Congress has never been lower.
The changing environment has given Democrats more opportunities to pick up seats, but it also has required hard decisions. “We have to stay focused on a sure-fire win,” said Pelosi, who is in frequent contact with Emanuel. “The temptation is to spread yourself too thinly. Rahm won’t be tempted by that. He’s cold-blooded enough to make these decisions.”
Pelosi praised Emanuel for his candidate recruitment, message development and knowledge of policy. “This election will swing on a number of different factors, but all of the success that we have will be attributable to Rahm,” she said.
During a day of fundraising in Phoenix, Emanuel is asked repeatedly to describe the Democratic path to victory. Despite refusing to predict how many seats Democrats will win, he has no problem comparing this election season to other historic elections that have resulted in massive numeric change.
He is happy to point out that polls show independents favoring Democratic candidates 48 percent to 30 percent. He’s even willing to hint that Democrats won’t lose a single incumbent, a feat that no party has accomplished in any election cycle, including the 1994 Republican takeover.
`I’d rather be us than them’
“Twenty-eight days is a long way to go, but in the current atmosphere I’d rather be us than them,” he allows.
At the Arizona Democratic headquarters, Emanuel touts the Democratic candidates for Congress to local reporters, including those considered outside the periphery of possibly winning. And he runs into Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), who gives him a hug and warns Emanuel that he’s going to get “ear cancer” from his cell phone.
“He kind of gets on your nerves sometimes,” Grijalva said, adding that he appreciates Emanuel’s persistence.
At the DCCC, Emanuel has revamped the way that political operatives work. Everyone is required to give him a weekly report. He has placed media, mail and polling consultants on teams, forcing them to pull together. And he calls the candidates regularly, always asking how much money they have raised and how many doors they have knocked on since the last week.
He also has enlisted strategist-friends, such as Begala and James Carville, to visit competitive districts and advise candidates. Begala, for example, has traveled to 25 congressional districts this year as a volunteer.
“I go all the way across the country for this guy, and every candidate says, `Can you put a good word in for me with Rahm?'” Begala said. “They’re all focused on Rahm’s priorities. That’s what he wants–raising the money and winning the race.”
By and large, the candidates who get Emanuel’s attention are grateful for it.
“I have his cell phone number and I know if I need to reach him I can get through,” said Giffords, the Democratic nominee running to replace Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.), who is retiring. “The conversations are always short and to the point, and when he says he’s going to deliver, he delivers.”
At the evening fundraiser for Mitchell, a former mayor of Tempe, Emanuel stands in the living room and warns the crowd that the final weeks are likely to get ugly.
“They are going to rip the living hell out of our candidates and pour on the juice,” he said. But, he added, Republicans are unlikely to come up with an October surprise to shift the political dynamic.
Republican colleagues have taken note of the way Emanuel has run the DCCC. Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.) calls it “masterful.”
“If the Democrats win the House, obviously Rahm will be a real rock star in their party,” said LaHood, who described his fellow Republicans as “mad” and “resentful” that Emanuel has been gunning so hard for them.
If he is successful, Emanuel may be in line for a leadership position in the House, but he refuses to discuss that possibility. Instead, he worries about Connecticut and Georgia and New York and Pennsylvania and whatever other districts pop onto his radar screen at the moment.
“This may come as a late-breaking surprise to some, but it’s not as though the Republicans are going to roll over on their backs and let us scratch their bellies,” Emanuel says. “They’re going to do everything they can to hang onto power.”
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Power resume
Rahm Emanuel is serving his second term as House representative from Illinois’ 5th Congressional District.
– A member of the powerful House Committee on Ways and Means, he is also chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, where he is the mastermind of the strategy to win back the House.
– He was a top adviser to President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1998 and a leading strategist in efforts to extend health insurance to millions of uninsured children and pass the Brady Act.
– Born Nov. 29, 1959, in Chicago, he graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1981 and received a master’s degree from Northwestern University.
– He and his wife, Amy, have three children.
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jzuckman@tribune.com
