Rahm Emanuel, Obama's former Chief of Staff, supposedly master mined Democratic congressional victories in 2006 and 2008. And based on that record he is, according to Chicago media, the leading contender to replace Mayor Daley. But a look at his record in the Democratic Party should make all progressives shutter. His greatest accomplishment has been squelching us.
Was it just coincidence, a nose for a sinking ship, or was it ‘mission accomplished’?
It seems mighty peculiar that Rahm Emanuel, hailed just 2 years ago as the victorious general of the great Democratic victories in 2006 and 2008, has abandoned Washington and returned home triumphant shortly before a huge election defeat that wiped out much of his work at the national and state levels.
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Although former Illinois Senator, Carol Mosley Braun has accused Rahm of "cutting and running," and leaving the President "holding the bag" (1); no one in the Chicago or national media has questioned his role in setting up the recent electoral tsunami.
The devastating loss of 70 House and Senate seats wasn’t just another ‘swing of the election cycle pendulum’. The electoral rout of 2010 was the biggest defeat the Democratic Party has suffered in the past 80 years. Moreover, it’s a rout that leaves the progressive insurgency that had been building within and on the fringes of the Democratic Party for nearly 10 year--mostly in opposition to Bush’s presidency--in tatters, disillusioned and directionless. That result may not be incidental.
Barack Obama’s skillful and eloquent campaign promise of change--of a clear break with Bush’s hated policies--had raised high hopes in the land. His apparent empathy with the plight and fears of working Americans sparked a broad progressive awakening that brought record numbers of youth, minorities, progressives, union members and skeptical older whites to the polls. Most of us were flush with high expectations.
But in only 2 years, almost all of those expectations have been trashed and stomped to the gutter, while an even more vicious group of Republicans moves in with swords drawn determined to slaughter the wounded and chase Obama from the White House. How did this fearful transformation occur so rapidly? Well, the groundwork for this turn of events, I think, was laid a while ago by General Rahm himself.
Back in July of 2009, Democrats, despite holding a large majority in the House and Senate, were unable to pass many progressive reforms because of opposition from conservative Democrats. Progressive Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA, 35) castigated Rahm, saying, "The chickens have come home to roost." The fowls she was referring to were actually the Blue Dog Democrats and New Democrats that Emanuel had helped elect in 2006 and 2008.(2)
Waters charged that Rahm told the Blue Dogs that they could vote the way they wanted to on specific issues, and that the Party leadership would not interfere with what was considered their (Blue Dog) philosophy. In other words, Rahm recruited conservative Democrats and then gave them free rein to block even moderate legislation offered by Obama.(2)
To no one’s surprise, in 2009 the Blue Dogs and New Democrats repeatedly cast key votes with Republicans that stymied progressive efforts to end the occupation of Iraq and the Bush administration's warrant-less wiretapping program. They also forced the Democratic Administration to water down or bottle up a slew of progressive initiatives including jobs programs, health care reform, financial reform, and the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). The latter is a simple reform that would make joining unions easier. Despite super strong union support in 2008 for Obama and candidate Obama’s campaign promise to back it, EFCA never saw the light of day in the Democratic controlled Congress.
Election analysis makes clear that the lack of progressive reform caused millions of Obama voters to lose hope and sit on their hands in 2010.
Perhaps more than anyone, Rahm Emanuel, has served as the Democratic Party’s enforcer enabling it to shape-shift from a moderately progressive, worker-friendly party into a pro-corporate, pro-war, anti-progressive political operation.
Using his intimidating f*** bombs as weapons, Emanuel over the past 15 or so years has focused like a laser on three things: raising corporate money, passing conservative pro-corporate legislation and blocking progressive candidates from winning Democratic primaries or general elections.
This focus was certainly evident during the Clinton years when Rahm worked hard to push NAFTA, which has caused so much economic devastation to the Democratic base of working people and minorities in the country’s heartland. But the full extent of the man’s anti-progressive political vision only became clear to us here in Illinois during the 2006 election cycles with the congressional campaign of Christine Cegelis.
In 2004, Cegelis’s grassroots campaign, with help from the state Democratic Party, came closer than anyone to defeating 32-year incumbent Henry Hyde in the Illinois 6th congressional district. She received 44.2% of the vote in a traditionally Republican district and pushed Hyde into retirement. In a Republican heartland, Cegelis and her supporters had built a progressive grassroots movement, and her strong showing gave a huge morale boost to progressive Democrats in the 6th district and throughout the state. For 2006, she became the front runner for the open Congressional seat.
Unfortunately, that same year, Rahm Emanuel became the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), which is responsible for directing Party funds and support to (or away from) Democratic candidates. Cegelis was a progressive Democrat, anti-war, pro-choice, pro-renewable energy and opposed to the Clinton-Rahm NAFTA trade deal. She was just the kind of independent progressive that Rahm and other Democratic Party leaders feared, "somebody nobody sent".
Party leaders were more interested in running rich, self financing candidates with center-right, pro-business views, and veterans with moderate pro-war views, but most of all, people they could control. Instead of supporting Cegelis for what looked like a sure win, Rahm and Senator Dick Durbin(D-IL)subverted her candidacy.
Emanuel who held the congressional seat in the neighboring 5th District of Illinois, apparently tried to recruit six different candidates to run against Cegelis. According to Kevin Spidel, campaign manager for the Cegelis campaign (and former member of Progressive Democrats of America), all of Emanuel's attempts failed because the potential candidates "all said 'hell no!' They knew the resentment they would face. If you were in the district, you knew how much Cegelis was loved. She built her own machine." (3)
Cegelis was the reason the district was in play in the first place," Spidel said. "If a candidate was able to grow a serious grassroots campaign, especially in a district that historically favored Republicans, it seems illogical to try and challenge it from outside the district."
To defeat Cegelis, Emanuel and Illinois Senator, Dick Durbin recruited an Iraq war veteran, Tammy Duckworth to run against Cegelis in the 2006 primary. "Duckworth had never been involved in political activity, and didn’t even live in the district. The only basis for Duckworth's candidacy was her status as an Army Reserve member who had lost both her legs in Iraq." (3)
Rahm’s DCCC and the state Democratic Party put the full force the Party’s machinery into beating the anti-war Progressive. They nationalized the Duckworth name. I received emails, allegedly from John Kerry and Hillary Clinton, asking me to make generous donations to Duckworth’s campaign. Ironically, one of Rahm’s criticisms of Cegelis was she didn’t raise enough money. But clearly the outsider Duckworth with no organization of her own raised little money on her own.
TruthOut reporter, Mark Renner, says that behind the scenes, Rahm and other Illinois Democratic leaders, including Durbin and Obama, put every obstacle in front of Cegelis: they pressured people listed as her contributors, they called her volunteers to plant rumors about her candidacy, and they turned the Illinois Party establishment, which had endorsed her in 2004, away from her. (3)
While Cegelis maintained strong volunteer support, the DCCC run primary campaign for the neophyte Duckworth spent close to $1 million. The results were extremely close, with Duckworth receiving 44 percent to Cegelis's 40 percent.
You probably know the rest of the story. Despite a national reputation and a budget of several million dollars—more than the DCCC spent on any other campaign that year-- Duckworth lost to a lack luster right-wing Republican, Peter Roskum who still holds the seat. If only the story stopped there.
Throughout 2006, Rahm’s powerful position as chair of the DCCC enabled him to run a wrecking ball through progressive campaigns across the nation. In Florida’s 13th and 16th districts, in California’s 11th district, where ever independent minded progressives Democrats chose to run for office, Rahm worked behind the scenes to ensure their fall in favor of rich conservatives willing to call themselves Democrats.
Thus Rahm built his reputation as the tough general who won elections for Democrats. Of course, some say that in 2006 and 2008 the stars were so aligned against Republicans that Rahm could have hung a Democratic sign on his dog and got it elected to Congress.
Regardless of whether his reputation is deserved, Rahm’s kids have fared poorly in the recent mid-term elections. Over 50% of the Blue Dogs lost or retired, while 30% of the New Democrats also went down. According John Nichols of The Nation, the Blue Dog coalition is finished.
We could say that Rahm has failed miserably, that he squandered millions on the Duckworth campaign to no purpose. A fraction of that would have put Cegelis and probably several other progressives over the top. Think of how he berated unions and Progressive groups after they mounted a primary challenge to Arkansas’s Blue Dog Senator, Blanche Lincoln. "You just flushed 10 million down the toilet", Rahm snarled after conservative Lincoln beat the progressive union backed candidate. But Lincoln went on to lose in the general election to a Republican. Obama voters from 2008 failed to turn up.
It seems only fair to ask Emanuel, where are the massive amounts of money you spent electing dozens of Blue Dogs and new Democrats in 2006 and 2008? All flushed down that same toilet? And while that jab is satisfying, the cynic in me says that Rahm did achieve his most important objective. He ensured the Democratic Congressional delegation remains pro-war, pro-corporate, as free as possible from Progressives, and under tight control from the top. Apparently, Rahm can live with Republicans, but not with progressive Democrats.
And the story’s not over yet. Having accomplished his national goal, now this pro-war, pro-corporate, anti-worker, anti-progressive, hurler of f*** bombs is hoping to take over Daley’s spot as mayor of Chicago. Can progressives and allies here stop him? If not, then any hope for progressive change in Chicago probably is f***ed.
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- Sweet, Lynn, "Carol Moseley Braun slams Rahm Emanuel's Hollywood fund-raiser, Obama chief of staff tenure" Chicago Sun Times, November 4, 2010 2:33 PM, at: http://blogs.suntimes.com/...
- Sam Stein, Maxine Waters: Rahm to Blame for Obstructionist Blue Dogs, Huffington Post 07/28/09 at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
- Special Report: Democratic House Officials Recruited Wealthy Conservatives By Matt Renner t r u t h o u t | Report Thursday 06 September 2007 at: http://www.truth-out.org/...