Add Rahm Emanauel to the 2028 Democratic Presidential Sweepstakes List…

Ignore that evasion. Rahm Emanuel is voting with his feet.

Since coming home in January from his stint in Tokyo — a job he repurposed to be American envoy to all of Asia — Emanuel has been as visible as any other Democrat. Never mind that he currently holds no office and hasn’t been on a ballot for a decade.

Name the political podcast and Emanuel has likely been on it or will be shortly. He immediately snagged a CNN contract and regular Washington Post column,no small accomplishment for a former official at a moment of retrenchment for news organizations.

He’s also hitting the lecture circuit, appearing for paid and gratis gigs before audiences such as the Realtors and the Chicago Economic Club. Emanuel is pointedly avoiding Ivy League campuses and later this month will make his first stop on a service academy tour when he speaks at West Point.

Just as striking is to talk to anybody in high-level Democratic politics who knows Emanuel — which is to say most everyone — and hear how matter of fact they are about the inevitability of his candidacy…..

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There were the assets.

Emanuel’s gift for finding a towering issue hidden in plain view; his tactical skills for grasping the political benefits it could confer, delivered with a snappy sound bite to elevate statistics off the page; linking domestic policy to geopolitics and sending a message about another, more controversial topic; and not merely urging Democrats to move on from trans youth issues, but using them as a vehicle to shift the conversation to ground he, and most in his party, would prefer to fight on. Gavin, are you listening?

There were also the liabilities.

Emanuel can also come off more as the tactician he was than the politician he was, sound glibly dismissive about people (USAID workers, the trans community) and generally exude a brusqueness that may obscure his talents in places such as, well, Orangeburg, South Carolina.

Which brings us what many of you have probably been thinking since the first sentence: Really, Rahm for President?…

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There’s not another living Democrat who hasn’t already run for president who’d better grasp every dimension of the job. In fact, this side of Leon Panetta, who’s even close? Emanuel worked on campaigns, including a presidential, was a senior aide in two White Houses, did a cameo in high finance, served three terms in Congress, was a big-city mayor for eight years and then envoy to one of the world’s largest economies for nearly four. And he’s only 65.

He has longstanding relationships with many of the leading figures in politics, diplomacy, military, business, the media and, thanks to his agent brother, even Hollywood. Plus, yes, the donors.

It’s easy to understand why Emanuel would think, well, why not me?…

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A white male pushing 70 who’s delighted to pick fights with the left and speak hard truths about the Democratic brand seems sensible now, but it could be fighting the last war after three years of Trumpian rampaging.

Emanuel’s biggest challenge, should he run, may be what his longtime friend James Carville memorably said about George H.W. Bush in 1992, as captured in The War Room documentary: “He reeks of yesterday.”…..

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image…GQ