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Emanuel in Washington

He's raising the cash, but can he get the votes?

May 16, 2005, Vol. 10, No. 33 • By RACHEL DICARLO
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Rahm Emanuel, the new head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, has a familiar name, a knack for fundraising, and a robust agenda for the 2006 House elections. Emanuel made his reputation in the 1990s as a shrewd White House adviser and campaign strategist for President Clinton. He left Washington in 1999 but returned three years later after winning an open House race in Illinois's 5th district.

Since then Emanuel has risen rapidly. He serves on the powerful Ways and Means Committee, and early this year he ascended to DCCC chief. He is focused like a laser on 2006, and is confident Democrats can wrest at least a few House seats from Republicans.

Emanuel's primary activities to that end have been fundraising--he's collected $12.4 million in the past three months--and aggressively recruiting a candidate for every open seat. He's enlisted Maryland congressman Chris Van Hollen to head a committee of eight House members from various regions of the country to encourage potential candidates. Each of the committee's members is responsible for a weekly progress report that he has to turn in to party leadership. "Open seats are priority A," Emanuel says. "They have the most propensity to move from one party to another."

The DCCC will also be looking at congressmen who captured 55 percent of the vote or less last time around. That group includes, most notably, GOP House majority leader Tom DeLay, who garnered exactly 55 percent in November. (In 2002, before his redistricting plan took effect, he got 63 percent of the vote.)

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