He’s back! Well, for a minute.
The former mayor of Chicago swooped into town recently and visited with his newly minted peer, Mayor Brandon Johnson.
Last year, after decades of enjoying a prominent role in local and national politics, Rahm Emanuel, the former mayor, congressman, White House chief of staff and Democratic Party uber-fundraiser wrangled his premium connections to snare an appointment as ambassador to Japan.
When Emanuel returned to his hometown and hung out with Johnson, all was felicitous.
“Met with U.S. ambassador to Japan, former Chicago mayor @rahmemanuel today,” Johnson tweeted on July 15, “to discuss opportunities to grow Chicago’s economy, especially emerging partnership between Japan’s tech sector and our world class universities. Thank you, Ambassador Emanuel, for your continued leadership.”
When President Joe Biden moved to anoint Emanuel
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as an ambassador, there was furious blowback from Democratic Party progressives. They revile him for his centrist ways and mayoral track record, including his decision to close 50 Chicago schools and the city’s mental health clinics, as well as the widespread accusation that Emanuel covered up the police murder of Laquan McDonald.Eyebrows on the left were wriggling furiously at the news of the Emanuel-Johnson meet-and-greet. Their outrage took flight on social media.
Johnson, the nation’s most progressive mayor, had no problem with it.
“What (Emanuel) said was that he was willing to help support the city of Chicago grow its industry, especially around tech, and he wants my administration to succeed, like everyone else,” Johnson later told the news media. “That he has made himself available if I were to ever need him.”
Emanuel must have been surely glad to be out of that job. The fifth floor of City Hall is the hottest of hot seats these days. And a U.S. ambassadorship is a cushy post in a prosperous Western nation like Japan.
Media accounts suggest he has been a big hit with the Japanese, who have embraced his executive experience and expertise in transportation, infrastructure and technology. Emanuel has been cheered for dumping his fancy car escort and instead riding the subways and passenger trains to locations around the country, tweeting praise about Japan’s transportation systems.
“In the U.S., he is seen as a tough guy, but in Japan, he is seen as folksy and compassionate,” Kazuhiro Maeshima, a professor in American politics at Sophia University in Tokyo, told Bloomberg News in June 2022. He is known as a “train geek,” he said.
The Emanuel I know must be itching to come home and plunge back into the political mix.
Why not “Mayor 1%,” as the left likes to label him? Biden could certainly use a “Rhambo” back home. His reelection campaign needs political oomph. Biden’s poll numbers are mired in the pathetic range, especially for a sitting president gearing up for a tough reelection campaign. He could use a master money raiser and keen strategist.
Few operatives possess better credentials. Emanuel was a key operative in the 1992 election of Bill Clinton; he was a mega player in Congress, where he represented Illinois’ 5th Congressional District; he was credited with bringing about the Democrats’ 2006 midterm victories. Some predicted he was on a path to become the first Jewish speaker of the House, but that goal was waylaid when President Barack Obama tapped Emanuel to be his White House chief of staff.
Everyone loves to hate — and fear — Emanuel. That is the secret to his effectiveness. He knows how to keep his party’s people in line.
Biden needs an operative like Emanuel. Put him on special assignment. For starters, he could return to his old stomping grounds to assist with the complex political machinations of the Democratic National Convention, scheduled for August 2024 in Chicago. He would have to be deployed quietly. No official title in the campaign. Emanuel does not need that. He just needs to be let loose.
In Washington, Emanuel is a profane hit man. “That man is both loved and loathed and has the reputation of a foul-mouthed mafia enforcer who, as President Barack Obama’s chief of staff, could reduce any politician to a quivering wreck,” Paul Harris, a writer for The Guardian, opined in 2011. “To put it bluntly, he is seen as an American version of Alastair Campbell, or the fictional Malcolm Tucker, but with even less charm and even more swearing.”
Charm, schmarm. Biden’s presidential aspirations need to be shaken, not stirred. The train geek might be just the ticket.
Laura Washington is a political commentator and longtime Chicago journalist. Her columns appear in the Tribune each Monday. Write to her at [email protected].
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