Chuck Schumer and Rahm Emanuel are in charge of taking back the Senate and House, respectively. Adam Nagourney, in the New York Times, gives them a fairly glowing review. Now, I am of two minds about Schumer and Emanuel. On the one hand, they have a job to do, recruiting candidates that can win and raising money for their campaigns. On that score, they have outperformed their Republican counterparts by a country mile. On the other hand, they haven’t exactly put ideology or party principles at the top of their list when they set out to find their candidates. What I find most galling is the way they have tried to shut down primary challengers and dictate to their candidates. As an example, take the following boast from Chuck Schumer:
“In the past, if you were a big shot in the Democratic caucus, you got a couple of million bucks,” he said. “No more.”
He went on, as he sought to assure his audience that their checks would not be squandered, to recount the strict conditions he set with senators and candidates alike.
“We’ll give you money, but you have to hire a campaign manager, a finance director and a communications director who we approve,” Mr. Schumer said. “They have to toe the line.”
Emanuel is even worse. You want to talk about micromanaging? Look at how he treats poor Lois Murphy…
Mr. Emanuel calls 40 Democratic candidates every weekend, demanding to know what they have done for him lately.
“He calls me on my cellphone just to see where I’m going,” said Lois Murphy, a lawyer from the Philadelphia suburbs who is challenging Representative Jim Gerlach.
Mr. Emanuel is paternal and approving when his candidates meet his standards for raising money or zinging an opponent. He is withering when they do not. Mr. Emanuel is legendary in Washington for ceasing communications with those who have displeased him (which presumably is preferable to the time he sent a dead fish to a Democratic pollster whose work he found lacking).
“I said to every challenger, between now and March 31, besides having X dollars cash on hands, they have to have three proactive policy things that they have announced,” Mr. Emanuel said. “I want to see clips. Otherwise you’re not part of my red-to-blue program, O.K.?”
Again, I am two minds about this. Emanuel is taking his job seriously and he is working hard. But, he is also dictating who gets hired, and using his ability to withhold money as a weapon to make candidates toe the line.
And that might be okay, except for stuff like this:
“When the far-left wing of the Democratic Party runs the party, we lose,” Mr. Schumer said at one fund-raiser.
Now, I can’t recall a time when the far-left of the Democratic Party ran the party. So, I take it that Schumer means that the Democrats lose because they are too left-wing for the electorate. And that belief is clearly reflected in Schumer’s decision to recruit Bob Casey, Jr. for the run against Rick Santorum.
So, while I must confess that Schumer and Emanuel have performed well overall, especially when compared to their Republican counterparts, I don’t think we can fix what ails the party and the country without taking on their candidates in future primaries, and we can’t do that unless we can compete financially. In 2006, we are going to have to go with the team we have, but by 2008 we need candidates that pledge not to take Schumer and Emanuel’s money, nor hire their campaign managers, finance managers, or communications directors.
We need a party within a party. It’s not that Emanuel and Schumer aren’t doing a good job, they are. But, they are doing it for pure power, not for the people. If we are going to have a two-party system that isn’t bought and paid for by corporate interests and lobbyists, we’ve got to break the paradigm. And shutting down primaries is not acceptable. We can’t let them get away with that strategy in ’08.
