The LaHood Choice

Barack Obama continues to prove his master carpentry skills as he hones and handcrafts his presidential Cabinet. Obama’s latest blue ribbon goes for his pick of Republican Rep. Ray LaHood, also of Illinois, to be his secretary of Transportation.

One of the first, and few, Republicans who gave Obama high marks for picking Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) as his chief of staff, LaHood is affable, approachable, pragmatic and a serious player who will make a great addition to an already-impressive Cabinet.

And although on the surface Republican LaHood and Democrat Obama wouldn’t seem to have much in common personally, they actually are not that far apart in terms of what I call Washington “pedigree.”

In the 1950s, young Ray LaHood of Peoria, Ill., was not a member of the politically prestigious and gold-plated Lucky Sperm Club. The grandson of a Lebanese immigrant and son of parents who ran a small hometown working-class restaurant and bar, LaHood would have been hard-pressed, between flipping hamburgers, busing tables and washing pots and pans, to name one local politician, let alone contemplate becoming a member of the House of Representatives. “We never talked about politics. Back in those days I wouldn’t have known who the city councilman was, or even the mayor. Politics never played a role in our lives. Never. Not for one second.”

But what LaHood lacked in lofty political connections he more than compensated for by observing the 12-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week schedule of a father he calls “the hardest-working guy I have ever known.”

LaHood applied that same worth ethic to a series of boyhood jobs, including working as an outdoor carhop, in a grocery store and, eventually, as elected representative of the people of Illinois’s 18th district.

After junior college, then a degree from Peoria’s Bradley University, LaHood started out as a junior high school teacher and then worked to keep delinquents on the straight and narrow while serving as director of the youth services in Rock Island, Ill.

After a stint working for then-Rep. Tom Railsback (R) and then fulfilling an appointed term in the statehouse, LaHood became House Minority Leader Bob Michel’s (R) chief of staff.

Although the 1980s were fairly lean times for Capitol Hill Republicans, working for Michel provided LaHood with a front-row seat to the Ronald Reagan Revolution. Although Reagan’s celebrated relationship with legendary Democratic Speaker Tip O’Neill (Mass.) is often heralded as the high-water mark for a time when diametrically opposed political adversaries could actually enjoy each other’s company, much of Reagan’s success came because of Michel’s civil and soft-touched across-the-aisle outreach. LaHood was apparently taking notes in case his own opportunity ever came along. And it did.

LaHood won his boss’s seat when Michel retired in 1994, and although he came to power during the heady days of the Newt Gingrich invasion, he quickly found himself the odd man out for being just one of a few Republicans who refused to sign Gingrich’s Contract with America. Not wanting to cut taxes during a time of high deficits, LaHood’s act of “defiance” tagged him as a suspect character within the Gingrich-Dick Armey-Tom DeLay power axis.

Before any talk of a Cabinet position, and as he prepared to retire after 30 years working on Capitol Hill, I had the opportunity to sit down with LaHood in his office during the waning days of the 110th Congress.

He sincerely appeared to be humbled by his surroundings, thankful both for the privilege of serving the folks back home and for those who invested in him during his early years.

“What I had were political mentors who taught me the right way and the wrong way to do things. Not just passing bills, but how to serve the people. How to make sure that doing what you’re doing is the right thing to do not for me, but for the people,” LaHood said.

Having been a key leadership staffer before becoming a member, LaHood knew full well he would wind up in hot water with GOP leaders when he declined to sign the popular Contract, but resolved that his own contract with his constituents was more important.

Besides, LaHood wasn’t exactly buying into the new tactics (effective or not) that had earned the GOP the majority for the first time in 40 years.

“I knew the real Newt Gingrich. I knew who Dick Armey was. I saw these guys elbowing their way up the ladder. Tom DeLay the same way. When I got elected, I told Tom DeLay, ‘I’m supporting Bob Walker [R-Pa.] for whip. He’s the most qualified guy,’ and DeLay never, ever forgave me for that and held a grudge against me. I saw these guys. Every leadership meeting. Boom. Boom. Not about the party, but about them.”

That kind of candor, though it drove his leadership nuts, also endeared LaHood to the media throughout his time on Capitol Hill. Even Gingrich eventually came around when he entrusted LaHood with the House gavel to oversee 1998’s high-profile impeachment of President Clinton.

In the old days of vaudeville, the future success of an act would often be measured by the phrase “Will it play in Peoria?” An old-timey tribute to the normalcy and decency of the small town located on the Illinois River halfway between Chicago and St. Louis, the message was clear: If the act could play well in Peoria, it would work anywhere in the country. Despite often being considered a thorn in the side and a gadfly by some in his party, LaHood fans from both sides of the aisle openly wondered if his style of politics would ever “come back” into vogue.

Having watched him fairly closely for all of his 14 years in elected office, it is no stretch to say that LaHood was a class act that worked not only in Peoria, but here in the nation’s capital, too. President-elect Obama gets a boffo review for giving LaHood another encore on the Washington stage.