'Do What You Got Elected to Do'

The incoming chief of staff says expect a pragmatic White House.

By JASON L. RILEY

In Rahm Emanuel's telling, the Democratic victories on Tuesday were a continuum of what began in the 2006 midterm elections, when his party won majorities in the House and the Senate for the first time in 12 years. "After 2006, I said it was George Bush and the desire for change," the congressman from Chicago's North Side tells me. "And the same cocktail contributed to this turnout. You had Barack Obama's message of change and Bush and the Republicans' record of incompetence."

Mr. Emanuel would know. As chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, he helped engineer that GOP thumpin' two years ago. And as Mr. Obama's incoming White House chief of staff -- a position he accepted on Thursday -- he's certain to have an outsized say in how the Dems use their political monopoly come January.

Recently, I spoke with Mr. Emanuel during a short layover at the Detroit airport. Officially, he hadn't yet been offered the new post, and when queried about the prospect of serving in the Obama White House he demurred. But Mr. Emanuel, who turns 49 later this month, was eager to discuss Congress's agenda going forward. He explained how Democrats can avoid the mistakes that felled the Republican majority, and he reflected on the lessons learned as a high-ranking member of President Clinton's brain trust in the 1990s.

Asked what Barack Obama was elected to do, and what legislation he's likely to find on his Oval Office desk soonest, Mr. Emanuel didn't hesitate. "Bucket one would have children's health care, Schip," he said. "It has bipartisan agreement in the House and Senate. It's something President-elect Obama expects to see. Second would be [ending current restrictions on federally funded] stem-cell research. And third would be an economic recovery package focused on the two principles of job creation and tax relief for middle-class families."

Editorial board member Jason Riley discusses the Rahm Emanuel pick. (Nov. 8)
The last time a Democratic president's party also ran Congress was 1992. Just two years later, however, voters changed their mind about that arrangement and gave the GOP control of the House and Senate. Mr. Emanuel said he's not at all concerned that the party will overplay its hand this time. He insisted that his caucus is mindful of what happened to Democrats in 1994 and the Republican Congress in 2006.

Not surprisingly, Mr. Emanuel defended President Clinton's decision to push through a tax increase in 1993 -- "a tough call" -- after having campaigned on a middle-class tax cut. He also denied that it had much impact in the midterm elections a year later. Instead, he cited issues like "gays in the military" as more damaging politically. "It's not what we campaigned on," said Mr. Emanuel. And as an example of Republicans losing their way, he cited the Terri Schiavo episode in 2005, where President Bush and the Republican-controlled congress intervened in a case involving a brain-damaged woman's feeding tube.

In both instances, "the lesson is to do what you got elected to do," said Mr. Emanuel. "Do what you talked about on the campaign. If you got elected, that's what people expect. Don't go off on tangents where part of your party is demanding an ideological litmus test. Neither of those things was part of the campaign."

Mr. Emanuel's slight build and basset hound eyes belie the "Rahmbo" moniker that aggressive tactics have earned him over the years. So does his background. The lawmaker's interests ran to ballet, not battleground states, while growing up on Chicago's tony North Shore in the 1970s as the middle son of a pediatrician who emigrated from Israel. A dance prodigy, he was offered a scholarship with the Joffrey Ballet but settled for a liberal arts degree from Sarah Lawrence and a master's in communications from Northwestern.

The political bug bit him in college. A stint with the consumer advocacy group Illinois Public Action led to fund raising for Illinois Democrat Paul Simon's 1984 senate run. Later, Mr. Emanuel would put his money-raising prowess to work for Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and, ultimately, Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign. In 1999, Mr. Emanuel left the White House, where he had served as a policy aide to the president. But there was little doubt that he would return to the political arena eventually.

After three years working as an investment banker, Mr. Emanuel ran for Dan Rostenkowski's old congressional seat. With help from the legendary Daley political machine, he won election in 2002 and quickly rose in the party ranks. Today he chairs the House Democratic Caucus, making him the No. 4 Democrat in the House.

Mr. Emanuel has a reputation as a bullying political operative who stops at nothing to fill seats in Congress with Democrats. As head of the DCCC, he was not only responsible for fund raising but also for vetting candidates. His methods often upset members of his own party, even when they were successful. In 2006, he made a tactical decision to recruit candidates who opposed abortion rights and gun control to run in more conservative-leaning districts. And although the strategy worked, it meant passing over more ideologically pure candidates, which didn't sit well with some orthodox liberals.

Policy-wise, Mr. Emanuel has fashioned himself as a "New Democrat" in the Clinton mold. He has long been an advocate of governing from the center, reaching across the aisle to seek consensus. As a Clinton adviser, he championed welfare reform and free trade. He's even called for a flatter, less progressive system of taxation. As a congressman, Mr. Emanuel supported the Bush administration's decision to remove Saddam Hussein, though he subsequently criticized the president's management of the war in Iraq.

So I asked Mr. Emanuel if the election of an unabashed liberal like Mr. Obama has made the New Democrat strategy obsolete. Perhaps what we witnessed on Tuesday means that liberalism is ascendant and the U.S. is no longer a center-right nation. "I think the country is incredibly pragmatic," he responded. "Pragmatic and progressive. But you still have to mix and match different approaches to reach your objectives. You have to be flexible."

He said the similarities between Barack Obama and the last Democratic president matter more than the differences. "Both Barack and Bill Clinton have an incredible connection to the public," he said. "Both ran on a message of hope. Both ran against failed policies that let the country down prior to them being elected. I don't think the country is yearning for an ideological answer. If anything it's the opposite. They want real solutions to real problems. And if we do an ideological test, we will fail. Our challenge is to work to solve the actual problems that the country is facing, not work to satisfy any constituency or ideological wing of the party."

An Obama administration could very well be planning to govern from the center. But there's still the reality of the Democratic congressional leadership, which is brimming with left-wing barons who have their own agenda.

Barney Frank wants to slash Defense spending by 25%. Charles Rangel wants to bring back the draft. John Conyers, who has called for slavery reparations, is also sympathetic to Europeans who want to indict Bush administration officials for war crimes. And Henry Waxman is angling for steep energy taxes to combat global warming.

The question is whether these veteran lawmakers will simply steam roll the new White House occupant, the way previous liberal majorities in Congress had their way with Presidents Carter and Clinton.

"Barack Obama can stand up to them," countered Mr. Emanuel. He started to defend a couple of his colleagues -- "Charlie Rangel also supports reducing the corporate tax rate, and go ask corporate America how pragmatic Barney Frank has been during the financial crisis" -- but then he paused. At first, I thought it was because Mr. Emanuel had run out of examples, but it turned out that he wanted to make a larger point.

"Let me say this as to my colleagues," he began. "Although committed to their philosophy, they are incredibly pragmatic. They have lived through an experience in the minority. And they know how they got to be in the minority. And they know one very important political principle. They know that if President-elect Obama succeeds, all of us succeed. And if he doesn't succeed, his failures won't be limited to him."

Mr. Emanuel avoided the word "mandate," but the future White House chief of staff said that the future president has been given "clear directions by the country to change policies in Washington -- to change a health-care policy that is bankrupting the family budget as much as the federal budget, and to change an energy policy that has us exporting $700 billion of our wealth to countries overseas."

Mr. Emanuel said that the best way for Democrats to avoid overreach in the next two years is by thinking "less ideologically and more in terms of future versus past." You have to "constantly be turning over the intellectual topsoil in order to stay fresh," he said. "The economy demands it. The political system demands it. The country doesn't want divided government. It wants progress."

Asked where John McCain's campaign went wrong, Mr. Emanuel said that the Republican didn't properly address the issues Americans care about today. "McCain ran a campaign that he thought he had to run rather than the one he should have run," he said. "You can't do that and be successful. We have an energy crisis, a health-care crisis, a public sector that hasn't reformed to the globalized economy." Mr. McCain "tried to make this about small things like Bill Ayers. Barack made it about health care.

"The American people penalized the candidate who talked about small things and rewarded the candidate who talked about big things," he said as our conversation wound down. "You can't win an election where the American people want to talk about one thing and your candidate wants to talk about something else. The American people are unbelievably pragmatic. Have confidence in their pragmatism. It's the operating philosophy of our country."

Mr. Riley is a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board.