This profile of Charleston native Sarah Feinberg appeared in Politico earlier this year.

On Thursday, Feinberg's boss, Rahm Emanuel, agreed to be President-elect Barack Obama's chief of staff. Feinberg's husband, Daniel Pfeiffer, was named communications director for the Obama transition team.

According to Feinberg's mother, federal judge Mary Stanley, Feinberg doesn't know yet what role she may play in an Obama administration.

By Helena Andrews/Politico

Not too long ago, freshman Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) had to go to a meeting. There would be some people there "asking some very specific questions." He was going to have to answer them very carefully. Enter Sarah Feinberg.

In the span of about 20 minutes, Feinberg, communications director for the House Democratic Caucus, sent Welch's office everything she "had on the shelf" about the Democrats' energy views. The information came in short, declarative statements, "not laden with political boilerplates," Welch said.

"I went in and pretended I knew what I was talking about, when it was Sarah who knew what she was talking about," he confessed.

Feinberg, who works with Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), said the caucus runs a "rapid response operation," in which the team is always looking at the next debate, never settling for just one good story.

"You don't just sort of hit a double - you hit a double and then a triple," she added.

Emanuel used another sports analogy.

"Part of communicating - doing it and executing it well - it's like a good game of pickup ball. Is there another way of telling our story or point of view on the same thing?" said Emanuel, who has been known for his sometimes brash methods of getting his point across.

Feinberg, 30, has perfect hair and talks with the slightest West Virginia accent. Her job is to help freshman members navigate the steep learning curve of their first term in Congress. Although colleagues describe her as calm and unflappable, Welch said that "talking to Sarah is like talking to Rahm."

"Rahm obviously has a reputation for being aggressive - and he is," said Feinberg. But, she added, there's a reason she's been with him so long - nearly four years. She started with Emanuel at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in January 2005, when she was the national press secretary. She joined the caucus two years later.

"The foul-mouthed, aggressive part of him is really easy to write about," she said about her boss' penchant for colorful language. Feinberg also said she's learning by osmosis, and likened working for Emanuel to "having a really hard professor in college who in the end makes you better, smarter."

On Thursday, Feinberg's boss, Rahm Emanuel, agreed to be President-elect Barack Obama's chief of staff. Feinberg's husband, Daniel Pfeiffer, was named communications director for the Obama transition team.

According to Feinberg's mother, federal judge Mary Stanley, Feinberg doesn't know yet what role she may play in an Obama administration.

By Helena Andrews/Politico

Not too long ago, freshman Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) had to go to a meeting. There would be some people there "asking some very specific questions." He was going to have to answer them very carefully. Enter Sarah Feinberg.

In the span of about 20 minutes, Feinberg, communications director for the House Democratic Caucus, sent Welch's office everything she "had on the shelf" about the Democrats' energy views. The information came in short, declarative statements, "not laden with political boilerplates," Welch said.

"I went in and pretended I knew what I was talking about, when it was Sarah who knew what she was talking about," he confessed.

Feinberg, who works with Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), said the caucus runs a "rapid response operation," in which the team is always looking at the next debate, never settling for just one good story.

"You don't just sort of hit a double - you hit a double and then a triple," she added.

Emanuel used another sports analogy.

"Part of communicating - doing it and executing it well - it's like a good game of pickup ball. Is there another way of telling our story or point of view on the same thing?" said Emanuel, who has been known for his sometimes brash methods of getting his point across.

Feinberg, 30, has perfect hair and talks with the slightest West Virginia accent. Her job is to help freshman members navigate the steep learning curve of their first term in Congress. Although colleagues describe her as calm and unflappable, Welch said that "talking to Sarah is like talking to Rahm."

"Rahm obviously has a reputation for being aggressive - and he is," said Feinberg. But, she added, there's a reason she's been with him so long - nearly four years. She started with Emanuel at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in January 2005, when she was the national press secretary. She joined the caucus two years later.

"The foul-mouthed, aggressive part of him is really easy to write about," she said about her boss' penchant for colorful language. Feinberg also said she's learning by osmosis, and likened working for Emanuel to "having a really hard professor in college who in the end makes you better, smarter."

"Basically all the stories about him are true," she said. But here's one many might not know.

Feinberg, who lives in Northwest Washington, was mugged at gunpoint last fall. Her husband, Daniel Pfeiffer, works full-time in Chicago as the communications director for Barack Obama's presidential campaign.

"Every night for about six weeks, [Rahm] made me send him an e-mail every night when I got home." But that wasn't all. She said the congressman would make sure Feinberg had locked the doors and turned on the alarm. "He's a big brother to the people who work for him."

Politics is a family business for Feinberg.

In the '80s, she spent her Saturdays and Sundays driving around West Virginia with her father, Lee Franklin Feinberg, who was running for the state Legislature. When he took office, she would visit him in Charleston and "sit on his lap while he was voting." Her mother, Mary E. Stanley, is a magistrate judge of the federal district court in Charleston.

"I don't know if it was a plan the whole time," she said of going into politics, "but [it's been] part of my life from very early on." Feinberg calls her résumé a "bit schizophrenic," from her first job as a staff assistant Senate Veterans Affairs Committee to a position with the environmental working group to a move to former Sen. Tom Daschle's office.

"My father's worked at the same law firm since he graduated from law school," she said. "I've probably had 10 different jobs in 10 years."

Feinberg's friend Tammy Haddad, former vice president of politics for MSNBC and now president of Haddad Media, said Feinberg's success goes beyond her relationship with Emanuel. "She clearly has Rahm's trust, but other people around town trust her, too."

She met her husband when they both worked for Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign. She heard Pfeiffer's voice during conference calls and thought he was cute. They worked together again in 2002 on South Dakota Sen. Tim Johnson's campaign. Pfeiffer told The New York Times' Vows section that he didn't "put two and two together for a long time. But sitting 4 feet away from her, well, it wasn't very long before I wanted to go out with her."

This year is obviously a big one for Feinberg, with elections coming up in November affecting both her and her husband's careers. But when this reporter suggested she and Pfeiffer could be a Washington power couple in four months' time, Feinberg laughed.

And although she's "had a stomachache through the entire '08 election," Feinberg said she does see herself somewhere other than the Hill someday. She's enrolled in a master's program, studying Middle East foreign policy at the National Defense University at Fort McNair in Washington.

Haddad said Feinberg is following a simple linear path - though it might not seem that way. "I think she's one of the rare people that are focused on success," said Haddad. "So she's willing to figure out ways to get there."

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