From the Political Wire:
During the past year, the Chicago Tribune
had “exclusive access to the strategy sessions, private fundraisers and
other moments that shaped the Democratic victory” in taking control of
the House of Representatives . “The newspaper agreed not to print any
of the details until after the election. Now that the votes have been
counted, the story of how Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) helped end an era of
Republican rule can be told.”“He did it, in large measure, by remaking the Democratic Party in his own image.
“Democrats had never raised enough money. Emanuel, a savvy fundraiser
who shaped those skills under Richard M. Daley and Bill Clinton, yelled
at colleagues and threatened his candidates into generating an
unprecedented amount of campaign cash. Democrats had a history of
appeasing party constituencies. Emanuel tore up the old litmus tests on
abortion, gun control and other issues. With techniques that would make
a Big Ten football coach blush, he recruited candidates who could mount
tough challenges in some of the reddest patches of America.”
It’s interesting to read about Rahm’s daily life and how he went about doing his job. But we need to put a swift end to this storyline about how responsible Rahm is for the Democratic victory. Chris Bowers gets us started:
Rahm won the House of Representatives for Democrats, but it didn’t stop there.
Rahm also won the four Republican-held House seats where the DCCC candidate lost the primary, but where the primary winner went on to take the seat anyway…
Rahm has a mind-meld with Nancy Pelosi, so if his body were to die and be sent to the Genesis planet in a hollowed-out photon torpedo, Spock’s father could bring him back to life on Vulcan…
When you put a needle on Rahm’s nipple, it plays Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys…
…When the world ends, it will be because Rahm blinked.
Which is all a nicer way of saying that Rahm Emanuel is only partially responsible for taking the House of Representatives. A lot more went into the effort than the machinations of one Machiavellian congressman from Illinois.
I don’t think we really want to get into a pissing match over who deserves the most credit. Emanuel definitely deserves a lot of credit, perhaps even the lion’s share. He worked very, very hard. But, even as I grant him his due, we have to hit back and take our due. Rahm made some questionable decisions. Some of them cost us seats.
As the Washington Post says today:
The midterms will be remembered as a referendum on the Iraq election, and the voters’ verdict will push the White House and the Democrats toward agreement on potentially significant changes.
How much does Rahm Emanuel have to do with that? Not much, if anything. I was with Patrick Murphy (PA-08) at the beginning of his campaign. He couldn’t get Emanuel to take him seriously. Jerry McNerney (CA-11) had to overcome Rahm’s candidate in a primary. Rahm pushed a political neophyte in Tammy Duckworth (IL-06) over the netroots’ preference and destroyed all the passion in that race. After pouring three million dollars of DCCC money into Duckworth, she lost. Meanwhile, our candidates in WA-08, NM-01, NC-08, OH-01, OH-02, PA-06, FL-13, fell short by less than a percentage point.
I don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but we should have done better in upstate New York, in Ohio, and we should have taken Chris Shays out. It was the netroots that expanded the field, it was the netroots and Lamont that showed the power of the anti-war message.
And the netroots is a progressive force. It isn’t lacking ideology, no matter how Daily Kos positions itself. The ultimate aim of online political activism is to take power away from corporate media and corporate lobbyists and give it back to the people. And that is a very leftist position that will result in very progressive legislation. We may not fall neatly into the old categories of labor, single-issue advocacy, etc., but that doesn’t mean we’re lacking in core principles. We’re just finding a different rallying point than we have in the past.
Rahm had some success on election day, but it wasn’t for his brand of politics. He helped unleash a beast that will sweep him from power just as thoroughly as he swept the Republicans from power.
I don’t expect the old media to get it…they are in for trouble too.
And, ironically, without Feingold in the race for the Presidency, progressives have no dog in the ’08 nomination fight. That means our efforts will again be focused on the House, and this time Rahm will find us more emboldened, more organized, and less willing to accept his leadership decisions.
Despite the midterms elections, and largely as a result of them, Rahm’s DLC is on its deathbed. But you’d never know it from the Democrats running for the Presidency.
We could have made Feingold the President. Do you think we will do the same for Tom Vilsack, Evan Bayh, or Hillary Clinton?
The week before the election, Rahm dumped $2.7 million into Illinois 06 and $1.2 million into Connecticut 04. Neither race was won, however. Yes, he did make a few good decisions, but how do we come to terms with McNerney and Shea-Porter?
a few days ago I also read this summary. Rahm’s losers
“Looking at all 22 candidates hand-picked by Rahm, we find that 13 were defeated, and only 8 won! (3) (One is still undecided.) And remember that this was the year of the Democratic tsunami and that Rahm’s favorites were handsomely financed by the DCCC.
The Dems have picked up 28 seats so far, maybe more. So out of that 28, Rahm’s choices accounted for 8! Since the Dems only needed 15 seats to win the House, Rahm’s efforts were completely unnecessary. Had the campaign rested on Rahm’s choices, there would have been only 8 or 9 new seats, and the Dems would have lost.”
exactly. he made 8 or 9 good decisions, and the rest leaves much to be desired. carol shea-porter will hopefully emasculate him upon taking the oath of office.
IL-6 was Henry Hyde’s seat where Duckworth ran against the scummy Roskam and lost in part due to the lyingest, most vicious attack ad I can ever remember. For a Dem to lost Hyde’s district by 5000 votes may be something to celebrate instead of cast blame for.
That is a really complicated district with an interesting history. Do you really think we should celebrate finishing a “strong second?” Something must have been wrong with the candidate or with her campaign.
Henry Hyde normally won with more than 70% of the vote. Sometimes nobody even bothered to run against him. This is one of the most rightwing districts in the state. I don’t see anybody blaming the candidate for the campaign for not beating Sensenbrenner in WI, for example, yet the demographics of the districts are similar.
I think Duckworth’s campaign and near miss shook up the GOP badly and provided the credibility that makes a win next time a real possibility.
BTW, Duckworth was handpicked by Sen. Durbin. As far as I know, Emanuel just did his job of backing her campaign. Yeah, the Dems spent a lot of money there, but they also forced the GOP to spend even more in a district that had never cost the Reps anything before.
I disagree. Cegelis had broad activist support from Democratic volunteers within the district, Rahm stupidly wasted a lot of money to handpick an outsider candidate who didn’t have that base of local support. It’s impossible to know for certain now, but I think Cegelis would have won easily over Roskam with half the money support they gave to Duckworth.
I was really pissed when I saw the Trib’s garish front page setting Rahm up to be the new little tin god of the beltway pundits. It’s not so much Emanuel, but just this media need to simplify complex events to the point of idiocy. What gets me is that I think Howard Dean is the unsung and unappreciated hero of this election. He stood up to the consultants and pundits and insisted on the 50-state strategy. It was that that allowed independent groups, from the netroots to the unions, to MoveOn and many others, to make a real difference in the outcome. Because of that difference, they have won respect and credibility that they didn’t have before, which in turn brings the power to shape future politics to a degree we had no right to expect.
That said, Boo, this constant Rahm bashing is getting old. In any pissing contest between Rahm and Carville I’ll take Rahm any time. Carville has earned a place in history as the Dems Architect of Defeat for at least 25 years now. It’s time for him and the other peddlers of obsolete “wisdom” to sell there stuff elsewhere. Emanuel at least seems to understand the times and to be capable of running a targeted, efficient operation. To me, the Dems doing ANYTHING that works is a kind of miracle. What I’m used to is calling the local Dem organization to see how I can help and never getting an answer — every passionate Dem I know has some story about why it’s been harder to work for free for the Dems than to get elected. Rahm seems to have changed that. Why aren’t we celebrating?
I also don’t get this sudden meme that we “only” won 30-some House seats and merely took control of the Senate against all reasonable odds. I think if Jesus came swooping down to have himself an apocalypse the progressive Dems would all get swept into Heaven and then shot off the Hell because God got sick of their kvetching about Heaven having the wrong brand of lattes.
I’m definitely no fan of Emanuel’s centrism, but if, as it seems, he brought the Dems a giant step closer to electoral competence, I say all praise to him. Take the tools he put in place and use them to get more lefties/liberals in power over coming election seasons. It was never a one-shot deal.
No. The last 6 months has been a power struggle between Emmanuel and Dean over whether to spend all of our money on the current election or use some of it to build the party in the states. I think Dems’ post-election majority status in the House and Senate is a vindication for Dean, we spent some of our money building infrastructure for the future and we are a stronger party going forward because of it.
This election was a referendum against Bush and we still only won roughly 30 House seats. This is inline with our other gains in the Senate and on the state level, and I really don’t believe Rahm had much to do with it, he just lucked into the job at the right time to get lionized with empty praise. In fact, I can think of several times over the last 6 months where his cautious approach was the opposite of the tack so many of “his” winners took. The money he controlled helped, but I think his tactical advice mostly sucked.
On top of that, Emmanuel scares me as much as Hoyer. I think they are very similar types of politicians, charismatic centrist demagogues who don’t believe in anything except accumulating personal power. I don’t want these two men becoming more powerful in the future, I don’t trust them to help people with the power they accumulate.
And the netroots is a progressive force. It isn’t lacking ideology, no matter how Daily Kos positions itself. The ultimate aim of online political activism is to take power away from corporate media and corporate lobbyists and give it back to the people. And that is a very leftist position that will result in very progressive legislation.
This is good prose, and I would like to believe it. This country badly needs such an outlet and such an enlightenment to keep our democratic experiment going. HOWEVER:
We may not fall neatly into the old categories of labor, single-issue advocacy, etc., but that doesn’t mean we’re lacking in core principles. We’re just finding a different rallying point than we have in the past.
Now here it gets trickier and more murky. The netroots by itself reminds my of cardiac ventricular fibrillation, where there is much activity but it is not coordinated thus resulting in no output! Some strong guidance toward the core principles that matter and that can win is needed to prevent just a lot of meaningless actions. Somehow a real braintrust must eventually give guidance to act as a ventricular defibrillation mechanism so real output can be restored.
Any thoughts on what or who such a coordinated progressive braintrust might be?
To your last question, my answer is no!!!!!! to all the rest that you say…preach it brother Boo. I do not like this man…he is a DLC’er and that is a no no in my book. I doubt Hillary will get what she wants…My opinion is we do not need dynasties in the the WH, period. Do you want it like this…bush, clinton, bush, clinton, bush..and so on…I am so very saddened that Russ dropped out. He was my first and only choice now I will have to go back to the list and decide…ba humbug…
Of the 29 new house member of the Democrats, 15 have joined the DLC, and another 9 consider themselves blue dogs. Boo-Man you are in total denial