Channels, Fall 2018

Channels • 2018 • Volume 3 • Number 1 Page 85 members of Congress and White House staffers. Case Study #2 - Barack Obama Overview Barack Obama served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 until 2017. During his first two years in office, Obama signed a number of landmark legislations into law, including the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform, and the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Obama inherited nationwide economic woes from his predecessor and passed a number of laws specifically related to economic stimulus, including the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and the Job Creation Act of 2010. In foreign policy, Obama worked to end military involvement in the Iraq War and ordered the military operation that ended in the death of terrorist Osama bin Laden, which brokered a nuclear deal with Iran and normalized relations with Cuba. Organizational Capacity - Obama At the outset of the Obama administration in 2008, some scholars were concerned about the organizational capacity of the White House, particularly President Obama's lack of experience in presiding over large organizations (Greenstein, 2011). Initial decisions about White House staffing, most notably the inclusion of a number of personal confidants as senior advisors in the White House, seem to reflect President Obama's desire to maintain a hierarchy while also ensuring that he was the final decision maker and his decisions were influenced by a wide range of opinions (Cohen, Hult, and Walcott, 2012). In a model self- described as a "collaborative hierarchy," President Obama maintained his final decision- making power while operating multiple specialized policy lines that allowed a variety of opinions to reach the Oval Office (Rudalevige, 2012). Rahm Emanuel as COS Choosing Emanuel. Emanuel was reportedly not Obama's first choice for COS. In October 2008, Obama reportedly asked former Clinton chiefs of staff Leon Panetta and Erskine Bowles, as well as his Senate COS Pete Rouse, if they would consider the position, and each declined. Eventually, the conversation turned to Rahm Emanuel. Obama and Emanuel were not close friends, but he did have Washington experience (particularly on the Hill) and a willingness to tell the president what he did not want to hear. Office of COS under Emanuel. The challenges at the beginning of the Obama administration were profound, but so were the opportunities. In spite of the Iraq War and the financial crisis of 2008, Obama had big majorities in the House and the Senate that made many staffers optimistic about legislative success. Emanuel recognized this potential and set a laser-like focus on success. Emanuel was brash and profane with his subordinates in pursuit of his true passion—progressive public policy. In many ways, Emanuel was the ying to Obama's yang. He was the temperamental to Obama's calm, and the crude to Obama's professional. Emanuel maintained a high level of control over substantive policy processes that flowed through the Oval Office, but at the same time, multiple senior level advisors had independent access to President Obama (Cohen, Hult, and Walcott, 2012). The tension