The incoming White House Chief of Staff is a former investment banker. Representative Rahm Emanuel, the first appointee under President-elect Barack Obama's administration as the 23rd White House Chief of Staff, worked as an investment banker at Wasserstein Perella (now Dresdner Kleinwort) from 1998 to 2002, after serving as an advisor to Bill Clinton and before entering the world of politics. He became a managing director at the firm’s Chicago office in 1999, worked on eight deals, and made $16.2 million during his two-and-a-half-year stint as an i-banker, according to the Wikipedia.
He is by no means the first investment banker to have become a White House Chief of Staff. That distinction is held by Donald Rumsfeld, who had a stint from 1960 to 1962 with Chicago-based investment banking firm A.G. Becker (sold to Merrill Lynch in late 1984), before becoming the 6th White House Chief of Staff, serving under Gerald Ford from 1974 to 1975.
The 11th White House Chief of Staff--Donald Regan--was a former Wall Street top honcho. Mr. Regan, who served under Ronald Reagan, from 1985 to 1987 was Merrill Lynch's chairman and CEO in 1971. He is the most accomplished investment banker to have served as chief of staff.
Oh, by the way, the incumbent (i.e.,22nd) White House Chief of Staff, Joshua Bolten, though not your usual deal-making i-banker, served at Goldman Sachs in London as its Executive Director for Legal and Government Affairs from 1994 to 1999 before being appointed by President George W. Bush in 2006.
Rahm Emanuel's reputation for "getting things done" apparently precedes him. He has not been called by some as "Rahmbo" for nothing. The Wikipedia had this to say about him:
Emanuel is said to have "mailed a rotten fish to a former coworker after the two parted ways." On the night after the 1996 election, "Emanuel was so angry at the president's enemies that he stood up at a celebratory dinner with colleagues from the campaign, grabbed a steak knife and began rattling off a list of betrayers, shouting 'Dead! ... Dead! ... Dead!' and plunging the knife into the table after every name." His "take-no-prisoners attitude" earned him the nickname "Rahm-bo". People who worked with Emanuel at that time "insist the once hard-charging staffer has mellowed out."
Andrew Sullivan views Mr. Emanuel's appointment as a "revealing first move" and "a sign of Obama’s seriousness about governing." His abrasive manners aside, people who know him claim, however, that Mr. Emanuel has redeeming features. Lindsey Graham, McCain’s closest Senate buddy, probably summed it up best: "He’s tough but fair. Honest, direct and candid."
Me, I like such authenticity from people I deal with. I guess you would, too. That's probably one of the things that has endeared Mr. Emanuel to President-elect Obama.
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