Obama: The Post Rahm Emanuel Era

On Nov. 3, President Obama’s second term will begin. Yes, yes, only two years after being elected president and not four years as the Constitution has it. This statement of ours is not in line, of course, with the clauses of the Constitution; however, it reflects only the panel of the political clock, its hands running at a fast pace towards the end of the first term of President Obama. What’s going to happen on Nov. 3? On that day, President Obama will call a meeting with his closest counselors. Rahm Emanuel will be absent, after he has been practically number two in the White House, truly second only to the president.

Pete Rouse, the new chief of staff, is taking Emanuel’s place. What will the meeting Wednesday morning, Nov. 3, be about? The gathering, with the president at the head, will discuss, in an atmosphere of a real emergency, the results of the elections to Congress the day before. Conceivably, it will become clear to them that their Democratic Party has lost their majority in the House of Representatives and their rivals, the Republicans, have really bitten into the Democratic majority in the Senate. In front of the participants, there will be newspapers spread out — perhaps one of the headlines, the day after the congressional elections, will announce: Even Senator Harry Reid, the Democratic majority leader of the Senate, has lost his seat in the state of Nevada to a Republican.

This is the scenario, but only a scenario, for a month from now. It’s based on public opinion polls and on the public climate. Whether the congressional elections results indeed turn the Democratic Party into a loser, or if the political damage will be more limited, it is indeed the end of Rahm Emanuel’s era; a new age in the White House has started — the appointment of Pete Rouse in the place of Rahm Emanuel reflects the president’s intention to try to reach understanding with the Republican Party in the field of legislation. It is not for nothing that Pete Rouse, the man who has come out into the spotlight, was known as “the 101st Senator.” In the past, he worked behind the scenes with Senators Daschle and Obama and did his political craft, in contrast to his predecessor, “with no bells,” contrary to Emanuel who sought confrontations — between his clasped lips was always a political knife with which he cut and promoted the president’s policy. His successor will aim for compromises, because the president anticipates a difficult period; if the Democrats are indeed hurt in the November elections, Obama is expected to spend the rest of his term of two years with Congress antagonistic toward all of his legislation. Obama may consult with one of his predecessors, Bill Clinton, who also personally experienced an opposition Congress. It is not expected that Rouse will deal with the issues of the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation. Emanuel was “set upon” this matter because of his being a Jew. In fact, it is not at all the duty of the chief of staff to be involved in foreign affairs, but to conduct promotion of the reforms the president asks to put into action. According to our assessment, Emanuel only caused harm — not only to the president but to the treatment of the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation issue itself.

And on the whole, a wheat farmer in Kansas doesn’t take that much interest in the building freeze problem somewhere else but rather in his economic situation. To this Obama should prepare himself for the remainder of his term. His special advisor, David Axelrod, is also supposed to quit in preparation for the groundwork for the president’s re-election campaign. Because after November, according to what the political clock is indicating (and not the Constitution!), the second term begins. And the president needs it to be more successful than the first two years.