RAHM EMANUEL, Barack Obama’s pugnacious chief of staff, will today announce his resignation to run for mayor of Chicago, White House officials confirmed yesterday. Peter Rouse, a senior adviser to Mr Obama and his former chief of staff in the Senate, will take over.
Mr Obama is expected to announce Mr Rouse’s appointment today. The change would mark a big break in the tone of the White House.
“Peter’s style is very different from Rahm’s,” said a senior White House official. “He operates at a much lower key and does not like to be in the limelight.”
Mr Emanuel (50), who cut his teeth as a young operative in the Clinton White House, has generated more attention as chief of staff than almost any recent predecessor, partly because of his restless and highly personal style of management.
As a member of Mr Obama’s inner circle – although the only one not to have been involved in the presidential campaign – Mr Emanuel has attracted critics for maintaining an airtight bubble around the president. But defenders of Mr Emanuel, who was also a key architect of the Democratic victory in the 2006 midterm elections, which turned George W Bush into a lame duck president, say he has been very effective at getting things done.
Critics say Mr Emanuel’s effectiveness at moving legislation often came at the expense of content, pointing to compromises made by the White House such as the size and composition of last year’s $787bn fiscal stimulus.
“Rahm is essentially a political animal, day and night,” said an outsider who knows him well. “Rouse is much more in the managerial mould.”
Mr Emanuel’s exit is the latest in a flurry of high-level departures from the Obama White House just a few weeks ahead of midterm elections.
Last week Larry Summers, Mr Obama’s senior economic adviser, announced he would return to Harvard University early next year. During the summer both Christy Romer, the chairman of the council of economic advisers, and Peter Orszag, Mr Obama’s budget director, resigned.
Speculation has focused on Anne Mulcahy, the former chief executive of Xerox, as Mr Summers’ replacement, although she told CNBC yesterday that the job would not be a “good fit” for her.
Among insiders, Diana Farrell, a deputy to Mr Summers who was formerly at the McKinsey Global Institute, is thought to be in with a chance. But officials hint that Mr Obama is on the lookout for somebody with direct business experience.
It was unclear whether Mr Rouse, who was previously chief of staff to Tom Daschle, the former Democratic majority leader in the Senate, and who himself was known as the “101st senator”, would take the new job on an interim or permanent basis. Mr Obama is thought to have also considered Ron Klain, chief of staff to Joe Biden, the vice-president, and Tom Donilon, the deputy head of the national security council.
Mr Obama will face further departures. David Axelrod, his senior political adviser and chief strategist for the 2008 campaign, is planning to return to Chicago by next spring to help prepare the ground for the 2012 re-election campaign. – (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010)