This week's Gangster is Obama's "Chief of Stuff" Reggie Love. He is Obama's right-hand man and personal aide. NY Times profiles him here. He helps Obama with everything and anything (besides policy). He plays a one-on-one basketball game against Obama at noon on every primary day. The guy can ball; he played football and walked on the basketball team at Duke. The NY Times article makes reference to some not so flattering photos taken of him while at Duke. God bless Gawker for finding them [NSFW]. His most important accomplishment is introducing Obama to Jay-Z, which turned into the most gangster moment of the campaign. "'So I’ve gotten pretty fond of Jay-Z,' Mr. Obama said. 'He’s broadened my horizons in the hip-hop world.'" Reggie Love, you are SYNJK's Gangster of the Week.
PS. I think Bush has senioritis. Somebody should call his parents.
I've begun a weekly column pointing out politicians, activists, journalists, staffers, businessmen, or anyone I see fit to be SYNJK's Gangster of the Week. I know I've been given the gangsters (Carville, Obama, Colbert, Cuban, etc.) their due, but this will formalize it. For the inaugural GotW, I've chosen Rahm "Rahm-bo" Emanual, the ballerina Congressman from Chicago who brought the Dems back from the brink of existence in 2006.
I was first introduced to Emanuel by this great profile piece in The Rolling Stone. His gangster status is well documented. While working in the White House, he mailed a dead fish to a pollster he didn't like. Ari Gold from Entourage is based on his brother, Ari Emanuel (In an episode, they are sitting in Ari Emanuel's $2,000 courtside seats). It is rumored that he lost his finger fighting for Israel in Syria, but he actually lost while working at Arby's in high school (I'd stick with the Israel story). My favorite Rahm Emanuel story is how, the night after Clinton's election in '92, he stood up at a celebratory dinner and called out all the Democratic betrayers of Clinton's campaign. After each name he shouted out "Dead...dead...dead...dead..." and stabbed the table with his steak knife after each name. Bad. Ass.
This is the kind of attitude the Democrats need if they are going to remain a force in national politics. His take-no-prisoners attitude is an affront to the notion that Dems are bunch of ninnies and push-overs. He stood up to Clinton and told him that fundraising needed to be his number one priority early in the campaign. Clinton listened and you can make the argument that this won him the nomination (Tsongas, Clinton's chief rival in the primaries, ran out of money cause he had to try to outspend Clinton). His strategic thinking and unbelievable fundraising power provided a net gain of 30 seats in the House when he was the DCCC chair.
He accomplishes the tasks before him, no compromises. He is angry and brash, but that's what this party needs. He's only 48, so he will be a player in Democratic politics for a long time to come. Vice President?
This week's Gangster is Obama's "Chief of Stuff" Reggie Love. He is Obama's right-hand man and personal aide. NY Times profiles him here. He helps Obama with everything and anything (besides policy). He plays a one-on-one basketball game against Obama at noon on every primary day. The guy can ball; he played football and walked on the basketball team at Duke. The NY Times article makes reference to some not so flattering photos taken of him while at Duke. God bless Gawker for finding them [NSFW]. His most important accomplishment is introducing Obama to Jay-Z, which turned into the most gangster moment of the campaign. "'So I’ve gotten pretty fond of Jay-Z,' Mr. Obama said. 'He’s broadened my horizons in the hip-hop world.'" Reggie Love, you are SYNJK's Gangster of the Week.
