Restless Dynamo: Rahm Emanuel Ponders the Plunge

Jeff Robbins on Apr 7, 2026

"If they ever make a sequel to 'Dumb and Dumber'," Rahm Emanuel mused to a packed hall at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire last week, "there's a lot of competition in this administration for who gets to play the lead." If there's one thing Emanuel isn't, it's dumb. He's not in New Hampshire to monitor the Granite State blossoming into springtime. He's there because he is seriously weighing running for president and his appearance at the New England Council's "Politics and Eggs" breakfast at St. Anselm, for decades a "must stop" for anyone considering running, showed why Emanuel has penetrated the national conversation about 2028.

There are several reasons this has happened.

First, there actually may be no candidate whose qualifications to be president surpass his. He has served as a top advisor to former President Bill Clinton, a three-term U.S. Congressman, Chief of Staff to former President Barack Obama, a two-term Mayor of Chicago and Ambassador to Japan. He not only knows government at every level, but he has been a high-octane, high-impact practitioner with a quality of experience that isn't easily ignored.

Second, while other potential candidates can be difficult to listen to with their pre-packaged, poll-tested pablum, Emanuel doesn't sound like a cliche-dispenser. He has been thoughtful about issues that no one else seems to be thinking about and he discusses them bluntly. Those include national service, the corrosive effect on children of social media addiction and the debacle that is the state of American education.

Third, he is tough-minded and knows the levers of civic and political power as well as anyone. That may be putting it politely; there's little doubt that when it comes to American politics, the sometimes-bare-knuckled Emanuel not only knows where the bodies are buried; he may have buried some of them.

Fourth, he presents as authentic, comfortable in his own skin, in the fashion of John McCain on his campaign bus during 2008, dubbed "The Straight Talk Express." Emanuel could not hide his innate impatience if he tried and he doesn't look to be trying. When the moderator at St. Anselm, New England Council President Jim Brett, began a question, "Are you worried ... ?" Emanuel quickly interjected, "Yes," to laughter from the crowd. Hand in glove with Emanuel's reputation for impatience is his reputation for relentlessness, a reputation Emanuel acknowledges. "I was Ambassador to Japan for four years. For the Japanese government, it felt like 40," he said to more laughter.

And fifth, if there is any prospective candidate with more physical energy than Emanuel, it would be surprising. A physical fitness fanatic, Emanuel works out intensively every morning and regularly swims a mile. After the St. Anselm breakfast, he was headed to a meeting with the Manchester Union Leader, an appearance on "The View" and a trip to South Carolina.

To start binding together a country that has been torn apart and is rotting from the inside, Emanuel proposes that every young person be required to do at least six months of national service of some kind, with the option of doing more. "If you do two years," says Emanuel, "we give you a down payment on your first home. Having done something for your country, your country will do something for you in return."

He has called for the United States to follow other countries' lead in keeping children under 16 off most social media platforms, citing a growing body of evidence that they are wreaking serious mental health damage. "We've got to make a choice when it comes to our adolescents," he says. "I put my thumb on the scale for adults over algorithms."

And he hammers away at the collapse of American education and has traveled to Mississippi to learn how America can learn from "the Mississippi Marathon," which has catapulted that state from 49th to 9th among the 50 states in reading.

Emanuel wears the root of his concern on his sleeve. "As the grandson of immigrants, I won the lottery of life," he says. "This country is a gift. It's time to give back that gift." And with that, he is off to the next stop.

Jeff Robbins' latest book, "Notes From the Brink: A Collection of Columns about Policy at Home and Abroad," is available now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books and Google Play. Robbins, a former assistant United States attorney and United States delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, was chief counsel for the minority of the United States Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. An attorney specializing in the First Amendment and a longtime columnist, he writes on politics, national security, human rights and the Middle East.