After 36 hours of agonising, including an emotional doorstep appearance pondering the potential cost to his family, Rahm Emanuel finally accepted yesterday the job of Chief-of-Staff in Barack Obama’s White House.

The highly combative Congressman — on whom the West Wing character Josh Lyman was modelled and known to some as Rhambo — promised Mr Obama a White House that “will do everything in our power to rise to the occasion”.

The President-elect said: “No one I know is better at getting things done.” Republicans suggested, however, that he was a strange choice for a man who “promised to make politics more civil and govern from the centre”.

Others fear that he may disrupt a tight inner circle whose catchphrase through a long campaign was “no drama with Obama”. Even his appointment has generated more off-stage leaks and theatrics than this cautious, disciplined campaign has produced in almost two years.

On Wednesday night Mr Emanuel appeared on the point of turning down a job often regarded as the second most powerful in Washington. Standing outside his house in Chicago, Mr Emanuel seemed to be drawn and red-eyed. “I got a lot to weigh: my commitment to my country, as well as what I want to do as a parent. I have a decision to make about my family,” he said.

A veteran of Bill Clinton’s Administration, he knows “what it means to a family” to be Chief-of-Staff — 15-hour days from before dawn to late at night. “I used to joke in the White House that on Fridays, I would say: it’s two more workdays till Monday,” he said. Back then, however, “I didn’t have children and I do have children now”.

“What is the cost?” he asked. “This is a personal choice about what my wife and I want to do for our family.” It has been a problem shared by others in Mr Obama’s team. David Plouffe, his campaign manager, has taken himself out of the running for a top job in the administration because of the imminent arrival of a baby.

Mr Emanuel, 48, received some sympathy from another family man from Chicago who has recent experience of being away from home. “The post he has accepted also will require more time away from Amy, and their children, Zach, Ilana and Leah, which I know is painful and difficult,” said Mr Obama yesterday. “I appreciate his friendship. I and all Americans should be grateful that Rahm is once again answering his country’s call.”

The President-elect remained out of sight while, after months on the campaign trail, he reacquainted himself with his wife and children at their home a few miles from where Mr Emanuel lives.

He is a doting father who has, for instance, read the complete Harry Potter series with Sasha. On Tuesday he promised his girls, in front of 74 million people watching his victory speech at home, that they would get a new puppy in the White House. The current occupant of that role, Mr Bush’s dog, Barney, bit a reporter yesterday. Mr Obama is aware that his wife and children will now be subject to intense scrutiny, not least because they will be the first black family to live in the White House.

No decision has yet been made about where Sasha and Malia will go to school, although there is speculation that they may attend Sidwell Friends, where Chelsea Clinton was educated. President Bush has invited the Obama family over for a visit to the White House before the inauguration.

In the past two years Sasha, 7, and Malia, 10, have spent much of their time with their maternal grandmother, Marian Robinson, in her Chicago apartment or having sleepovers with a network of family friends across the Hyde Park area of the city.

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