Nov 7, 2008 7:43 am US/Central
Obama To Hold News Conference Friday Afternoon
President-Elect Picks Rahm Emanuel As Chief Of Staff
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
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In this June 6, 2008, file photo, Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) left, huddles with then-presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill) during an unscheduled stop at the Olympic rally in Chicago.
Charles Rex Arbogast/AP
Barack Obama is getting ready for his first news conference as president-elect.
It will be Obama's first public appearance since Tuesday's election, where exit polls showed that the economy was far and away the top issue for voters. He's been using the time for private meetings with his transition team, receiving congratulatory phone calls from U.S. allies and intelligence briefings, and making decisions about who will help run his government.
Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden were also to meet Friday with 17 members of their transition economic advisory board. Members include former presidential Cabinet officials and executives from Xerox Corp., Time Warner Inc., Google Inc. and the Hyatt hotel company. Investor Warren Buffett was participating by telephone.
Meanwhile, the man Obama chose to serve as chief of staff is talking about his new role.
After days of speculation, Rahm Emanuel made it official Thursday. Aggressive, forceful and sharp-tongued, Emanuel is considered the 'tough cop' to Obama's 'good cop' role.
CBS 2's Dana Kozlov reports that President-elect Obama will hold the first official news conference since being elected at 1:30 p.m. Friday afternoon at the Hilton on Michigan Avenue. He will likely discuss his transitional team and any other key appointments - including his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel - who accepted the job on Thursday.
"We have got to turn this country around," Emanuel said.
That was Emanuel's focus on Thursday night. The Chicago congressman is known as a tough, partisan political insider who understands both the White House and Capitol Hill. Outside his 5th CongressionalDistrict office Thursday evening, Emanuel indicated he's already reached out to both parties.
"I made a series of phone calls to both Democrat and Republican leaders to reach out. I've received a lot of calls not only from Democratic colleagues, but republican colleagues who could not have been nicer," Emanuel said.
Emanuel and Obama are old friends and in a statement Thursday, the president-elect said "no one is better at getting things done." Obama added: "Though Rahm understands how to get things done in Washington, he still looks at the world from the perspective of his neighbors and constituents on the Northwest Side of Chicago, who work long and hard, and ask only that their government stand on their side and honor their values."
Political consultant Thom Serafin says that's a boost to the city, too.
"He is a pitbull, and one of the problems that people say Rahm is gonna have is that he had so many bad relationships in the old days, but he's the one who brought the majority back to the Democrats a few years ago. But more importantly, it's terrific for Chicago," Serafin said.
Other Chicagoans are expected to be tapped to serve including Obama's chief strategist David Axelrod as a senior advisor. Longtime spokesman Robert Gibbs is expected to be his press secretary. But Emanuel will hold one of the most important positions in the White House - likely making informal encounters like the one today next to impossible in the years to come.
"You guys have treated me always fairly, even when you never showed up to my press conferences. I won't hold it as a grudge," Emanuel said while giving the thumbs up sign.
As for Obama, he has mostly been out of sight since Tuesday, but he has not been taking it easy. On Thursday, he was at the Chicago FBI Headquarters on Roosevelt Road for his first top-secret intelligence briefing.
Before he speaks to the media on Friday, President-elect Obama is meeting with his economic team. He faces a tricky task as he begins dealing more directly with the financial meltdown.
"The American public is looking for decisive action by Barack Obama that will address their immediate problems," said political analyst Allan J. Lichtman. "You don't easily fix the American economy."
After the news conference on Friday, Obama is going to spend the weekend with his family here in Chicago. Then on Monday, he and his wife Michelle will visit the White House at the invitation of President Bush.
CBS 2's Dana Kozlov and CBS News' Joel Brown, and the Associated Press, contributed to this report.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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