Rendell stumps, in vain, for Comcast’s Cohen on Obama team
Hours before President-elect Barack Obama named his chief of staff, Gov. Rendell talked up his own former aide, David L. Cohen, for the job in a breakfast meeting today in Philadelphia.
Hours before President-elect Barack Obama named his chief of staff, Gov. Rendell talked up his own former aide, David L. Cohen, for the job in a breakfast meeting today in Philadelphia.
Pennsylvania had just delivered big Tuesday with 3,184,807 votes for Obama, compared with 2,584,119 for Sen. John McCain.
The Philadelphia area itself went whole hog for Obama, with with the city and the Pennsylvania suburban counties in the win column for the Illinois senator.
Then there was the fundraiser in October, organized by Cohen, a top Comcast Corp. executive, that raised $6.1 million when Obama was in town. The event, Cohen said, set a Pennsylvania record, passing the previous highwater mark of $2.5 million for Rendell in 1999 when President Clinton was the special guest.
Cohen was chief of staff for Rendell when he was Philadelphia mayor.
In the early afternoon, Cohen e-mailed that no one was calling him for the chief of staff job in the Obama administration, despite the good word from Rendell. "This isn't happening. . . . Ed has better ways to get back at me than to send me to D.C."
Rendering the banter entirely moot, Obama's campaign a short time later today announced that U.S. Rep. Rahm Emanuel, an Illinois Democrat, would serve as Obama's chief of staff.
