his guy friday
Despite his protestations, the 42-year-old Emanuel is an unlikely candidate for the seat. For one thing, he’s not from the district, at least not in the conventional sense. Most Chicago politicians push the notion that they’re neighborhood guys. They point to the parks where they played, the high schools they graduated from. But Emanuel isn’t a neighborhood guy. He didn’t grow up in Ravenswood, North Center, Albany Park, Portage Park, Dunning, Belmont Cragin, or any of the other communities that make up the Fifth District. He didn’t play ball at Welles or Portage or Hamlin Park and didn’t go to Lane Tech, Steinmetz, Lakeview, Roosevelt, or Prosser. He didn’t even attend a local college or university. No, he grew up in Wilmette, graduated from New Trier West, and went to Sarah Lawrence College, where he studied ballet and got a liberal-arts degree.
In some ways Clinton and Emanuel made an odd couple. Clinton was, of course, the Elvis Presley of national politics—warm and endearing, with his ingratiating aw-shucks, I-feel-your-pain, down-home style. Emanuel was, by all accounts, brash, arrogant, and caustic. While Clinton could listen to people talk about their problems for hours, Emanuel showed no patience for chitchat. The world, he let it be known, was divided into those who had money to give to the campaign and those who did not. And unlike Clinton, he didn’t care if people disliked him. “Making enemies is inevitable,” he told a reporter in the early 90s. “If your goal is to get things done, and get them done quickly, yes, you’re going to have them.”
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Mother Jones called him “arrogant, rash and power hungry” and described how he once “sent a rotting fish to a former coworker with whom he had parted ways.” Later in that article an unnamed colleague said, “Nobody says he’s dumb, but everyone says he’s an asshole.” He let the Mother Jones writer see his impatience, snapping rubber bands, tapping pencils, and shifting in his seat. He said he saw no point in joining a feeble journalistic expedition to find profound meaning in his life. “I don’t know about you,” he said, “but if I want introspection, I’m gonna pay a hundred dollars an hour.”
The story went on to describe Emanuel indulging for a moment in some recreation—on the bike path in Washington’s Rock Creek Park, shirtless and in tight shorts, shouting “left!” as he zipped past “hapless yuppies and their children…. His furious pace doesn’t slow for tight corners or low overhangs. Most people find bike rides relaxing, but Emanuel rides as if he’s being chased by the Headless Horseman.”
Between 1999 and 2001 he helped put together four major deals, including the merger of Peco Energy and Unicom, Commonwealth Edison’s parent company. For his efforts, he made about $8 million in fees. “I like the job,” he says. “It gave me the economic security to do what I want with my life.”
But he quickly assured friends and advisers that running for Congress wasn’t far-fetched. It was an open seat. He wouldn’t have entrenched opposition. True, Nancy Kaszak had already announced that she was planning to run, but she had few powerful backers and little money. Mayor Daley had no candidate in the race, and the area’s most powerful committeeman, Alderman Richard Mell, would be neutral, because Blagojevich was his son-in-law. As one Mell backer put it, “We don’t want to alienate any of the people running for Rod’s old seat.”
