As White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel will have an impact on the midterm congressional elections in 2010, but not like he did during 2006, when he helped Democrats win back the House of Representatives as chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Emanuel is a key figure in a new documentary, "Housequake," which tells the story of that election by following a number of the Democratic victors (and a couple of those who lost) through that campaign, accompanied by Emanuel’s observations on what makes a successful candidate — which, put simply, is someone who can win.
The most amusing part of the film — the D.C. premiere of which I attended recently — was when Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.) describes how he hesitated when Emanuel first recruited him to run, wondering if he would still have enough time to spend with his family. Emanuel tells him it’s really not that bad, and Shuler then starts receiving regular calls from the then-congressman.
"Heath, I’m just calling to say I’m on my way to school to take my kids. Health, I’m on my way now back to school, I think I’m going to eat lunch with the kids today. … Heath, we’re going to soccer practice," is how Shuler describes the calls, which continued for "two solid weeks" until Shuler was convinced. Emanuel also gives lessons on the importance of fundraising and the unimportance of ideology. As the son of a sabra says at one point during the film, all he cared about was 15, the number of seats that had to change hands for Democrats to take control, and Emanuel’s single-minded drive is a thread running through the film.
Directed by Karen Price, no stranger to political campaigns as the daughter of Rep. David Price (D-N.C.), the film does a great job at showing the daily, sometimes unglamorous life of a congressional race. There are the places a candidate must campaign — parades, county fairs, picnics — and the sometimes odd and unpredictable people they meet (like the candidate who can’t leave a parade without shaking the hand of someone in a big Snoopy costume.) Or the campagn workers who are trying to figure out how to attach a sign to a campaign vehicle without the sign blowing off in traffic. Or the daughter of Rep. Baron Hill (D-Ind.), who talks about how difficult it can be to watch her father get criticized by voters and his opponent. (Full disclosure: Price was a friend of mine in college.)
The film will be screening around the country in upcoming months. For information, check out the film’s website here.
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