Rahm Emmanuel Hunts the Elusive Muddle

Suitably outraged at the Paul Hackett hatchet job perpetrated by DCCC chairman and fundraising hotshot Rahm Emmanuel(D-IL), I was shocked to learn that this isn’t a one off.
It's habitual.

Emmanuel has been bringing down progressive candidates like an upland bird hunter on a canned hunt on a private ranch in one of our larger southern states.

Citing fund raising issues as a reason for undermining popular grassroots candidate Paul Hackett, he seems blithely unaware of his responsibilities.
The DCCC is supposed to provide financial assistance to promising but lesser known candidates.
Emmanuel appears to be continuing the Quixotic quest of the Democratic Party to shake off its blue collar roots and to become the party of security/soccer moms and up and coming college educated suburbanites.

Fat chance!

Losing three elections and sorely trying the patience of Democratic voters has done nothing to dampen Emmanuel's enthusiasm.
He is repeating this failed strategy by substituting lap dogs for out spoken progressive candidates.

His actions remind me of Scott McNeeley, the Sun Microsystems Founder who ran his company into the ground because he was angry he wasn’t Bill Gates.
After failing to take down Gates in court, he is reduced to having prominently labeled company buses cruising the Redmond campuses of Microsoft and acquiring small companies to run into the ground.

Both men seem to be consumed by the failure of their own bad ideas.

Never mind that the largest block of voters is the disgusted and discouraged group of non-voters who progressives have the best shot at bringing to the polls.

Never mind that the mealy mouthed, right of center, proto-elitist mumbo jumbo turns off people that all ready vote.

Never mind that weak kneed accomodation has the same chance of inspiring the “they’re all crooks” crowd to swell the ranks of the Democratic Party as the proverbial snowball in hell.

What makes Emmanuel think he know more than the grassroots who are cheering on the men and women who take principaled stands?

Excuse me, but I don’t recall rank and file Democrats crying out for a gatekeeper to prevent them from having the opportunity to vote for candidates that represent their interests.

History is not on his side. Populist ideas and straight talk are key to the success of the Democratic party just as lifting the wallet of the working "man" and propping up dino-business has been key to the success of the Republicans.

We can shrug off Harry Reid's lame attempts to evoke Harry Truman.
Today's Democrats equate straight talk with farting at the dinner table.
The perpetrator is severely ostracized.

Part of this picture has to be the addiction of the Democrats to big money corporate donors. Squeezing money out the fat cats is Emmanuel’s special domain.
His connections with Clintonite Bob Rubin gave him an instant career as a successful investment banker and access to Rubin's roladex when he bought himself a seat in the House.

Emmanuel knows he can’t win without the progressives so he throws them a sop.
He’ll support a progressive candidate to get our money and then give him/her the boot if it looks like they might actually win and cause trouble in the dumbed down houses of congress.

The candidates who have felt the wrath of Rahm were outspoken in their views and unapologetic.
Hackett made a statement that the GOP have been taken over by religious extremists and unlike every Democrat in the House and Senate he refused to apologize.

Democratic voters have been holding their collective breath for five years waiting for just one of their elected representatives to make this self evident statement and to refuse to lick boots for the sin of having spoken plain truth.

The fact is voters are sick of the smell of fear emanating from Congressional Democrats and party leaders.

Christine Cegalis who is being shunted aside in Illinois wants to end the Iraq war.
Dick and Rahm want gung ho helicopter pilot, double amputee and non resident Tammy Duckworth to run.

Emmanuel has dual Israeli US citizenship and the role of Israel in prodding the US to fight in the Middle East is well known.
Or is Immanuel just angling for the big bucks from the war profiteers and energy giants?
Or both?

I don’t know Emmanuel and I can’t say what is going through his mind. I do know that what he is doing is every bit as indefensible and despicable as what the Bush cult are doing.

He is subverting the democratic process to pursue his own interests.
He is muzzling those who speak plainly and truthfully.
He is running his party off a cliff as surely as Bush has running the country off a cliff.
He has deluded himself into thinking he is king maker, if not a king when he is really no one very interesting.

Emmanual likes to think he crafted the Clinton victory. He raised a lot of money but it is Clinton’s personal charm, ability to inspire and intelligence deserve most of the credit.

His second round of hand picked candidates do not have that winning combination.
The ones he is rejecting come a lot closer to that ideal.

Is he, like an old man, trying to recapture the excitement of his youth by reliving the victories of the past?
Have the years fogged over the real shape of events?
Is it Tom DeLay envy?

For those of your who are upset not only by his actions but by the baseness and nastiness of them, it might tickle you to know that the Democratic “enforcer” once worked as ballet dancer.

I don’t know if that was before or after he graduated from Sarah Lawrence College only a few years after it stopped being a woman’s only college.
Nothing wrong with either of these endeavors but is this man trying to over compensate?

In his methods, ideas and personal history, I sense an identity crisis.
This is not a good thing for a party that has suffered from the same malady for decades.

If he does want to prove his masculinity, couldn’t he do it in the House, fighting Republicans instead of torpedoing candidates that might actually rescue the Democrats from a sure and certain demise?

Carol DW

PS

In case Hackett’s betrayal didn’t depress you quite enough, try this. It seems that David Sirota, the respected “conscience of the Democratic Party” is working with Sherrod Brown, Hackett's replacement.

Some months ago Sirota recommended Hackett try and win a seat in the House and leaving Brown to capture the Senate seat thereby giving the Democrats a win win.
Sounded like a good idea at the time, but I don’t recall him mentioning that he had a dog in the race.

Be that as it may, when Hackett decided to run for the Senate, he gave others his word that he would not change his mind and run again for the House.
Unlike Rahm and the DCCC, Hackett is a man of his word.

Isn't this just the kind person we want and need in Washington?