A Biography of Rahm Emanuel
A Profile of the New White House Chief of Staff
Rahm Israel Emanuel was born in Chicago, Illinois on 29 November 1959. He attended a number of different schools whilst growing up, first the Bernard Zell Anshe Emet Day School in Chicago. When his family moved to Wilmette, he attended a number different public schools.
He went to Sarah Lawrence College and graduated from there in 1981. He then went to on receive a masters degree in 1985 from Northwestern University. He majored in Speech and Communications. Whilst Emanuel was still an undergraduate, he joined David Robinson's congressional campaign. He is a very good friend of David Axelrod, who was President-elect Barack Obama's Chief Strategist for his presidential campaign.
Emanuel in Clinton's White House
Emanuel worked on Democrat Paul Simon's 1984 US senate election. He was also a senior advisor and chief fundraiser for Richard Daley's successful campaign for Mayor of Chicago. At the beginning of Bill Clinton's presidential campaign, Emanuel was chosen to be the chairman of the campaign's financial committee. After the campaign, Emanuel worked in Clinton's White House as a senior advisor to the President of 1993 to 1998.
In 1998, Emanuel resigned from his job in The White House and later on began to work as an investment banker at Wasserstein Perella (the company is now known as Dresdner Kleinwort), where he worked until 2002. During his time as an investment banker, Emanuel earned $16.2 million.
Congressional Career
In 2002, Emanuel ran for the US House seat of the 5th District of Illinois which was left vacant when Rod Blagojevich left to run successfully for Governor of Illinois. He won the primary election and easily beat the Republican runner Mark Augusti.
In August 2006, Emanuel announced that he would support Hilary Clinton should she choose to run in the 2008 presidential election. However, Emanuel's loyalties were strained when Barack Obama announced his interest to run in the election as well.
He remained neutral in the race until June 2009, when he expressed his support for eventual winner Obama.
On November 6 2008. Emanuel announced that he would accept the invitation to serve as Barack Obama's Chief of Staff. He resigned from his congressional seat on 2 January 2009 and will being his new role on 20 January 2009 after Obama is inaugurated.
Emanuel is known to be a very aggressive politician and has earned the nickname 'Rahm-bo'. The character Josh Lyman played by Bradley Whitford in The West Wing is thought to be based on Emanuel, although this has been denied by show's producers.
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