joins the party

Rahm Emanuel has reportedly been tapped for Obama’s Chief of Staff.

He’s undoubtedly qualified and has the enforcer mentality the job may just require. This is a serious, but decidedly un-cuddly pick.

It’s essential to note that Rahm and David Axelrod are also closest friends — speaking on the phone several times a day in a “sounding board” capacity, as Emanuel told me earlier in this cycle. With his bosom buddy as Obama’s gatekeeper, Axelrod may be able to enjoy his campaign haul basking on the shores on Lake Michigan.

Open question: What cut of $700 million did Axelrod & Co. take home? Hard to argue they didn’t earn the cut — whatever it is — but the figure could well be obscene.

NBC just called it.

President Elect Obama

If you visit the Obama campaign’s online call center, you come across this curious map:

Where are Georgia, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico?

Are the elections effectively over there?

Also hard to know how much to make of this urgent message:

Friends –

Barack needs your help now — our data indicates that the results will
be very close in many states. I can’t emphasize enough how urgent
this message is. Please go to http://my.barackobama.com/call and
start calling as soon as you can.

We are not going to hit our goal of 500,000 calls for today by 3pm
Central, unless we get at least 2,000 more people calling for the next
hour.

Can you call now and continue for as long as you can manage?

http://my.barackobama.com/call

Thank you.

Judith

Woah:

Survey USA conducted a poll two years ago proposing as a hypothetical matchup the contest we’ll all be voting on tomorrow.

The results speak to the electoral Everest Obama has since climbed:

All hats off to TPM media:

Myers, last Halloween, posing with the employee in blackface whose costume she’d awarded “most original.”

Someone in the Bush administration improperly leaked the immigration status of Obama’s Kenyan aunt.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office is now conducting an internal investigation to determine the source of the leak.

A reasonable hypothesis, based on my own experience as a reporter, is that this off-the-record source had a previous relationship with one of the reporters — and like as not had earlier spoken to one of them on the record.

A Nexis search of previous stories by Eileen Sullivan and Elliot Spagat and Immigration and Customs Enforcement from 2008 turns up four potential “law enforcement official” suspects:

Spoke to Sullivan:
ICE assistant secretary Julie Myers (October 1)
Scott Hatfield, unit chief of the Human Smuggling division at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (July 7)

Spoke to Spagat:
Mike Unzueta, special agent in charge of investigations at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in San Diego. (October 22)
Joe Flores, group supervisor for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. (January 12)

From this list of three careerist immigration officials and one deeply controversial political appointee the choice of a prime suspect isn’t difficult.

Julie Myers.

Myers is a loyal Bushie whose appointment was a clear case of nepotism — she is both the niece of Gen. Richard Myers and is married to John F. Wood the chief of staff for the homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff.

Myers was such a controversial pick that she was initially installed at ICE in 2006 via a recess appointment, and she was not confirmed by the Senate until last December.

Her nemesis in the appointment process was one Claire McCaskill, who tried to block Myers with a “hold” last year. The Missouri Senator is a co-Chair of Barack Obama’s campaign.