Rahm (“Fuck Progressives”, “Fuck the UAW”) Emanuel likely will bolt his cozy White House job, where he has helped preside over a fiasco, and will return to Chicago to run to succeed Daley as Mayor.
According to the Washington Post, the filing deadline for the Chicago mayorship is November 22nd. By all accounts, Rahm has decided to “pursue his dream job”. That’s the same kind of language that most failures use to abandon their ship before it hits the rocks and sinks.
Obama’s first pick of anyone for anything, Rahm has been an unmitigated disaster: he’s dissed the Democratic base (not only progressives but unions that make up the core constituency of the old party; gays; Latinos and the elderly) and he’s made many political and policy decisions that will hurt the party come November. AND Rahm has a history of doing this: he did the same thing in 1994 when he led Democrats to slaughter and was nearly fired by Bill Clinton (but saved by the Jewish lobby).
Recall that just a few days ago, trusted political scientist Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia predicted that Democrats would lose 49 seats in the House, thereby losing control of that institution, and that they would lose 8 or 9 Senate seats, thus effectively losing control of the Senate too. All on Rahm’s watch as the trusted political adviser-Chief of Staff to the President.
Rahm now gets to walk away in advance from the train wreck that will ensue in a few weeks and hence escape responsibility (as he did in 1994). Rahm was behind some of the most pig-headedly wrong decisions of the Obama administration’s first two years:
- the policy of “looking forward not backwards” on Bush administration criminal transgressions;
- the flip flops on major policy decisions like on DADT and DOMA;
- the decision to scuttle the public option and single payer, to take it off the table before negotiations began;
- the crazy idea to have Judd Gregg, one of the most reactionary senators ever, to become the administration’s Commerce Secretary;
- the lame idea to pursue a weak, timid approach to the unemployment crisis and to enact a “too little, too late” economic stimulus plan
- the Wall St. bailouts, on which Rahm helped repay old friends in big banks with trillions of dollars (but that may come in handy in a race for a job in corrupt Illinois);
- and the insane plan to attack your own base (progressives, labor unions, gays, Latinos) and instead attempt to appease Republicans. In here, we might add the opposition to Elizabeth Warren to a position which she is uniquely qualified to hold.
- Rahm also opposed Howard Dean’s successful 50 state strategy and froze Dean and other progressives (Dean, Dawn Johnson, Elizabeth Warren) out of the administration.
Now Rahm will walk away from it all, before the train wreck happens. It’s good, very good, to get him out of the Obama administration but he again escapes accountability and will have a nice gig, making lots of money, likely in one of the most corrupt cities in the world where he fits in nicely.
The Washington Post in an article entitled “Emanuel’s Expected Departure From the White House Expected to Be Just the First” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/08/AR2010090806881.html hits the nail on the head, at least in the headline. A pallor of doom and defeat is hanging around the White House bunker as Obama’s poll numbers continue to plunge and as the economic crisis continues pretty much unabated.
The WaPo sees Gibbs, some of the economic team (but not Geithner) as well as David Axelrod as leaving soon.
But I think they missed the biggest likely departure, bigger even than Rahm: Hillary.
Hillary is smart and she can read polls. Her friend Nancy Pelosi is going to be smarting after she loses her House Speakership and after the likely tsunami hits politically in November, not a lot of those Democrats who are left in office are going to be exactly beholden to Obama.
So after the destructive wave hits in November, look for Hillary, probably just before Christmas, to announce that she needs to spend more time “with her family” and away from the glare of spotlights. Next time around, she won’t even have to run a campaign; people will be running to her and asking for her to primary the charlatan-wimp, Obama, in 2012. And guess who young people, women, gays, labor unions and anyone who wants a fighter would rather have in office: Obama or Hillary? Hillary learned long ago, like FDR did, that you have to fight Republicans, not appease them. Note too that former top aides to the Clintons like Peter Daou, James Carville, Donna Brazile and Robert Reich have been extraordinarily critical of Obama’s policies. Reich writes an almost daily critique of Obama administration policies over at the Huffington Post. Gearing this team up with be easy for Hillary. Heck, even Bill looks clean these days and the modern Democratic party has no better speech maker and strategist than Bill Clinton. Unlike Obama who has lost much of his magic, Bill still wows people. He reminds them of the Happy Days of his own administration when most people still had jobs.
I predict that Obama will be forced out of office by his own party–just as LBJ was in 1968–within the next two years. LBJ had one albatross weighing him down, the Vietnam War; Obama has two, the endless wars abroad and the endless economic crisis. Obama’s simply not been up to the job and has shown zero fight for average Americans. Note that when Obama visited Milwaukee a day or so ago for his Labor Day speech, Sen. Russell Feingold, who’s in a close reelection campaign for his Senate seat, was not to be found with Obama. Instead, Feingold campaigned in Janesville and Racine, two cities devastated by auto plant closures DURING the Obama administration’s tenure. Obama has become radioactive, just like W was. His administration is starting to fall apart now with Rahm’s imminent departure. Like a rotten house built on an inadequate foundation, it will cave in after the November election hits and investigations of his administration begin with GOP control of the House. And you know what folks, that will be a good thing for REAL Democrats since Obama punked liberals and progressives in 2008.
UPDATE:
Michael Moore wrote an excellent article up on Rahm called “Happy Fuckin Labor Day” over at his website at http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/happy-fuckin-labor-day. Here’s part of what he wrote:
“Dear Rahm Emanuel:
Happy Fuckin’ Labor Day! I read this week that — according to a new book by Steven Rattner, your administration’s former “Car Czar” — during White House meetings about how to save the tens of thousands of jobs that would be lost if GM and Chrysler collapsed, your response was, “Fuck the UAW!”
Now, I can’t believe you actually said that. Maybe Rattner got confused because you drop a lot of F-bombs, or maybe your assistant was trying to order lunch and you said (to Rattner) “Fuck you” and then to your assistant “A&W, no fries.”
Or maybe you did mean Fuck the UAW. If so, let me give you a little fucking lesson (a lesson I happen to know because my fucking uncle was in the sit-down strike that founded the fucking UAW).
Before there were unions, there was no middle class. Working people didn’t get to send their kids to college, few were able to own their own fucking home, nobody could take a fucking day off for a funeral or a sick day or they might lose their fucking job.
Then working people organized themselves into unions. The bosses and the companies fucking hated that. In fact, they were often overheard to say, “Fuck the UAW!!!” That’s because the UAW had beaten one of the world’s biggest industrial corporations when they won their battle on February 11, 1937, 44 days after they’d taken over the GM factories in Flint. Inspired by their victory, workers struck almost every other fucking industry, and union after union was born. Had World War II not begun and had FDR not died, there would have been an economic revolution that would have given everyone — everyone — a fucking decent life.
UPDATE #2: Rahm Won’t Have an Easy Time in Windy City.
Politico has a good article up by Jonathan Allen and Shira Toeplitz, “Rahm Emanuel is No Shoo-In In Chicago” that says:
“As White House chief of staff for 18 months, and as a congressman here for six years before that, Emanuel has managed to infuriate national leaders of four constituencies critical to winning the keys to City Hall: blacks, Hispanics, unions and liberals. All, in some form, blame him for personally thwarting their top goals, whether on jobs programs, immigration or the health reform bill.
He’ll have to navigate the city’s complex ethnic and racial politics, with black and Hispanic political leaders already trying to coalesce around candidates. And in a city with no shortage of homegrown Democratic pols, he’ll battle the inevitable charges of “carpetbagger.”
Rahm’s likely to have as his chief opponent, the Chief of Police of Cook County, Tom Dart, who is a reformer with strong support in the black community. “Dart filed a federal lawsuit against the online message board Craigslist for promoting prostitution and famously suspended the eviction of county residents from foreclosed homes in 2008 during the height of the housing crisis,” continues Politico. “TIME Magazine named him one of their top “Leaders and Revolutionaries” in their 2009 annual list of the most influential 100 people in the world.”
The Politico article has some good comments on Rahm:
“Adam Green, head of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, said Wednesday that Emanuel is a “cancer on the Democratic Party” – a sign that liberals may try to take out their anger on Emanuel over the health care bill by coming after him in Chicago.”
Politico also notes that Representative Bobby Rush, who beat Obama for a House seat in Illinois, has a long simmering fight with both Obama and Rahm.
It’s also likely that Rahm’s opponents will tar him with the economic failures of this administration, especially the high unemployment rate (more than 25%) among minorities (50% amongst young people). If Rahm decides to run, he will be representing all the failures of the Obama administration to an inner city. Campaigning and voting against him will provide lots of people with a nice kind of “payback” mentality and an election with Rahm’s in it will also be a referendum on the Obama administration. Lot’s of voters will have a chance to say, “Fuck you” to Rahm. I’m thinking of moving to Chicago to do just that.
Here’s another thought. Blago’s retrial has not yet started and the Blago defense team has previously indicated that next time they will indeed call Rahm to the stand. I suspect that Rahm might end up behind bars in Illinois before he gets elected to anything.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0910/41918_Page2.html#ixzz0z2MLOtKk
