"Interview: Pete Rouse" (the presumptive new Chief of Staff)

[Clio the Leo]

By sheer coincidence, I listened to the segment tonight from Jonathan Alter's book "The Promise" that talked about Rahm and Pete Rouse. Gotta love the random happenings.

Obama is coming to Washington. He wins the Senate race, and you get a phone call from Cassandra . What was that phone call? And how did you get involved?

I knew Barack a little bit during the previous year, because he was running for the Senate. I was working for Tom Daschle , who's a Democratic leader, and we had interaction with him, particularly early. Then as we went on, he had a couple of breaks in the election and was the odds-on winner early. And he was calling in periodically to ask if he could direct some money to some of our Senate candidates, trying to develop a relationship with Daschle, presumably to try to get decent committee assignments.

And after the election, when Daschle lost in 2004, I had 30 years in the federal retirement system, so I figured this was a time to go. And he called me up out of the blue and initially asked if I would come and meet with him at the Mandarin Oriental during his orientation, ostensibly to give him some guidance about how to approach entering the Senate. ...

We talked for the first hour about how he should approach getting organized and getting established and getting set up. And in the second hour, I think he asked me, would I be interested in being his chief of staff and helping him? And at that point I said I really couldn't, because Daschle had lost. We hadn't expected it. We had to wind down the Senate office 26-year career in Congress. We had to help our folks get jobs who weren't anticipating it.

And he said: "Well, why don't you just think about it? I'll keep on looking, and I'll get back to you." So that's sort of how it started. ...

... You didn't say no the second time. Why? What did you see the potential here? What about this guy made you, personally, decide, "I'm going along on this ride"?

First of all, remember, when I sign up, there's no indication that he's running for president, and he's not thinking of running for president. And I may be the one person in politics who has never seen the speech at the <2004 Democratic National> Convention. ... I've never seen it. Never even read it, for that matter, which I probably shouldn't admit to.

But you could tell that this guy was important to the future of the Democratic Party, in part because he's African American, but the major reason was because he had such intelligence, insights, spark. He had the magic; you can tell he had the magic.

And what he said to me when we started, ... he says: "I know what I'm good at. I know what I'm not good at. I know what I know, and I know what I don't know. ... I can give a good speech." And I said: "Oh yes you can. We all agree with that." He says: "I know policy. I know retail politics in Illinois. I don't have any idea what it's like to come into the Senate and get established in the Senate. ... I want to get established and work with my colleagues and develop a reputation as a good senator, and we'll see what happens." So I was impressed by his approach to this.

I did think that he was important to the future of the Democratic Party. Ten years in the leadership with Daschle, 19 years in the Senate, I was well aware that we could use an injection of fresh blood and talent in the Senate. I sat in the Democratic Caucus lunch every day for 10 years, and I'm looking at this guy and saying, this guy has got as much potential as anybody. I'm not disparaging anybody in that room, but as much potential, long-term potential, as anybody in the caucus that I've seen over 10 years.

So my view was, since he's not running for president in 2008, to get him started: to set up his operation; get a good team in place; get a good strategic plan in place; get a good structure. ... I'll lay that foundation, and we'll see what happens. I'll be in my rocking chair when he runs in 2016 or whatever.

Much more....
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/choice2008/interviews/rouse.html

According to Alter, Rouse lives alone in DC with a bunch of cats. From this we can deduce that he's good people. :)

President Barack Obama presents a birthday cake April 15, 2009, to senior advisor Pete Rouse in the Oval Office. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)


President Barack Obama stands with Senior Advisor Pete Rouse backstage at the Rothman Center, prior to rally for New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, N.J., Oct. 21, 2009. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)


President Barack Obama, holding a football, offers a fist-bump to senior staff member Pete Rouse, during a meeting with senior advisors in the Oval Office, April 8, 2009. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

[Pirate Smile]

1. An interesting post from EarlG on Rouse:

EarlG ADMIN (1000+ posts) Thu Sep-30-10 03:34 PM
Response to Reply #1

6. I was curious about that

I found this Frontline interview from October 2008, I haven't read the whole thing but there were a couple of snippets about the DLC in there:

Frontline: The Harvard (Law Review) experience: ... We've talked to (members of the conservative Federalist Society) that were there at the same time and were very supportive of him (Obama) because he had this bipartisan attitude about how to get things done. Can you see that in the way he operates?

Rouse: Yes, definitely. ... I believe that his rhetoric or his pitch about working together to solve big problems and building consensus, that's how he thinks; that's what he's always done. It goes back to his days as a community organizer. That's what he brought to the Senate; that's what he brings to the White House.

But that doesn't mean -- and I don't want to be disparaging here, but criticism of the DLC (the centrist Democratic Leadership Council) is find the lowest common denominator and pass it. That's not what he's talking about here. I think he's talking about moving forward with a progressive agenda. Clearly it's not going to be 100 percent of what you want, but we can do better. And we can get 65 to 70 percent, 75 percent, whatever it is, if we work together and are honest about it and, obviously, build popular support for it.

(snip)

Frontline: So the direction that Obama wanted it to go, the reasons that he made the decisions he made on immigration are what?

Rouse: I think, again, the decisions he made were based on his views of what is acceptable immigration reform and what's doable. And again, I would go back to the comment I made about the DLC, just using them as an example. We're not looking for the lowest common denominator just to pass something. We're looking to pass something that may not be the bill we would write if we were sitting alone in the Harvard library writing it, but it's one that we think significantly moves the ball forward. It's not just passing it to pass it. You're passing it because it's making things better.

I feel like the "find the lowest common denominator and pass it" attitude was always Rahm Emanuel's thing... Pete Rouse doesn't seem to be of the same mindset. It will be interesting to see where the administration goes from here.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=433&topic_id=462038&mesg_id=462066

[Ozymanithrax]

2. Like Rahm, Rouse will push the President's agenda. n/t