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Who's Rahm Emanuel?
Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel will be Barack Obama's White House chief of staff, raising the question, who is Rahm Emanuel?

The Chicago native was just elected to his fourth term in Congress. In 2006, he was chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, winning a majority for Democrats for the first time in 14 years. Before Congress, he was a political advisor to President Clinton, holding the title of senior advisor to the president for political strategy.

Thomas Mann, a White House expert at the Brookings Institution, says Emanuel is right for this job, calling him "savvy politically," and saying he will be loyal to the president, "and that means being blunt and honest with him."

Blunt and honest aren't the only words that describe Emanuel. He's called intense, hard charging, bright, tough, disciplined and highly partisan, though associates say he has mellowed. Emanuel says he's different than when he was in the Clinton White House, because he has three children now.

Emanuel is 48, a Chicago native who grew up in Wilmette. He lost half a finger in a meat slicer when he worked at Arby's as a teenager. He was a ballet dancer as a boy, and turned down a scholarship to the Joffrey Ballet. His father, a pediatrician, was born in Israel.

(Illinois Radio Network)
11 06 08 by Newsroom
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