While Democrats search for a new party leader, one old name keeps coming up in conversation: Rahm Emanuel.
The Democrat has been an investment banker, congressman, White House chief of staff, Chicago mayor, and U.S. ambassador to Japan, and now he's been thinking about adding another title to his long resume: president.
There's just one problem: “As well-known as he is, people don't really know him,” said former Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), who is in touch with his former House colleague.
Still, Israel and other Democrats familiar with Emanuel, 65, say it would be unwise to count him out.
After all, Democrats say there aren’t many people on the list of potential candidates who can raise money and organize better than Emanuel, who helped run the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2006 and was credited with flipping the House back to Democrats in that cycle.
“What fascinates me about him is that for him it’s all about winning,” Israel said. “And he knows how to win the most challenging of battles.”
Emanuel hasn’t made a decision about whether he’ll run for president and the Democratic nomination.
Sources close to him say he’s still making up his mind while consulting with his family (including his brother Ari Emanuel, the Hollywood mega agent) and other key Democratic allies.
But he is already leaving breadcrumbs about a potential run, including making an appearance at the all-important stop for any Democrat with big political aspirations: the September fish fry in Iowa. He has also signed a contributor contract with CNN and has hit the speaking circuit.
“I am in training,” Emanuel told the hosts of "The View" earlier this month, not hiding his intentions. “I don’t know if I’ll make the Olympics.”
In the meantime, since leaving his post as ambassador to Japan under the Biden administration, he has been making the rounds and offering his blunt assessments of the state of the Democratic Party.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal this week, he called the Democratic brand “toxic” and “weak and woke.”
“I’m tired of sitting in the back seat when somebody’s gunning it at 90 miles an hour for a cliff,” Emanuel told the Journal in the interview.
“If you want the country to give you the keys to the car, somebody’s got to be articulating an agenda that’s fighting for America, not just fighting for [President] Trump.”
(Those who have spoken to him in recent months say in typical Emanuel fashion he’s even more candid in private about how pathetic the current state of the party is and how rudderless its leadership is.)
In regular columns in The Washington Post, he has also been giving Democrats advice on how to reemerge from the so-called wilderness.
“Yes, we should oppose the MAGA agenda at every turn. But given that we control neither the bully pulpit nor any congressional gavel, we need to focus foremost on what’s winnable: next year’s midterm elections,” Emanuel wrote in a column earlier this month. “Our task is to help the public understand what the Republicans are doing and how it affects them.”
Those who know Emanuel — whom one Democrat described as a "whip smart bulldog" — say he meets the moment.
“No one — and I mean no one — is feistier than Rahm,” one major Democratic bundler said. “He can land punches like no other, and he would be Trump’s worst enemy.
“He’d know exactly what to say not only to bust his chops but to live in his head,” the bundler said. “That’s exactly what we need right now. There’s a huge void there.”
The bundler also predicted that few people could raise as much money as Emanuel, something that would give him an automatic advantage in what is expected to be the most crowded presidential field in modern history.
“He would start from a position of strength,” the bundler said.
But one Democratic strategist said Emanuel’s record — particularly as mayor of Chicago — could be a thorn in his side.
“His record as mayor of Chicago is absolutely something that I would expect to be used against him,” the strategist said. “He carries a lot of unresolved baggage from that tenure.”
And what might hurt him even more is that he’s been around the block and Democrats could be wanting to kick the establishment to the curb.
“Less of a commentary on Rahm, it’s very likely that the moment is going to call for Democrats to make a clean break with the past and with the status quo,” the strategist said. “One big hurdle for him is that he is both."
But Israel said Emanuel offers the electorate a broad range of dimensions.
“Trump wins because he organized MAGA, but Rahm always wins because he organizes mega, He puts together progressives and [moderate] Blue Dogs. He knows how to win these coalitions,” Israel said, referencing the caucus of centrist Democrats.
The strategist has some doubts.
“This is a guy who used to do that,” the strategist said. “But we live in a different era.”
Amie Parnes covers the White House and presidential politics for The Hill. She is also the co-author of several bestsellers, including the recent “Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House.”
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