The failure of Emanuel's strategy can be demonstrated by the numbers. Of the 21 "first wave" picks announced on April 27th, only nine have been declared winners, with one (Joe Courtney in CT-02) holding a 170 vote lead over the incumbent, and three others losing by 1400 (Madrid, NM-01), 2700 (Kilroy, OH-05) and 3600 (Burner WA-08) votes in races that are still considered "too close to call." Four of Emanuel's "first wave" picks lost by over 10,000 votes (Busansky, FL-09; Lucas KY-04; Derby NV-02; and Cranley, OH-01). Only three of Emanuel's picks received support by the two largest ActBlue organizations (Murphy, PA-06; and Gillibrand, NY-20 both supported by Blue America, with Burner supported by NetRoots.) At least three of the DCCC's "first wave" picks were against incumbents who were directly implicated in the Abramoff scandal (Hayworth, Taylor, Sweeney), and a fourth (Nick Lampson) was running against a write in candidate for Tom Delay's old seat. (Lampson did not run for Delay's unexpired term, but his Write-In opponent received more votes in that contest than Lampson received in the general election.)Please tell your errand boy Carville to STFU. He's embarrassing himself by going after Dean. Can't you fight your own battles?
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In other words, out of 35 races that the DCCC targeted for conversion to the Democratic Party by early July, Emanuel only managed to find "winners" in 12 of them on his own-- at least five of his other victories were based on progressive bloggers providing the seed money that demonstrated that these were viable candidates. Moreover, the DCCC picks included at least 6 races where the challenger does not seem to have had a realistic chance of success-- in other words, Emanuel directed money to candidates that could have been better used elsewhere.
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First and foremost was Emanuel's tendency to seek out "Republican Lite" candidates, while ignoring more progressive candidates.
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Secondly, Emanuel virtually ignored the importance of the grassroots in choosing candidates. A prime example was his insistence upon supporting Tammy Duckworth over grassroots candidate Christine Cegalis, which likely cost the Democrats that seat. In 2004 Cegalis had received over 105,000 votes against entrenched GOP incumbent Henry Hyde, running a campaign on a shoestring. She had a strong grassroots organization in place. Duckworth, by contrast, did not even live in Illinois' 6th district. Nevertheless, Emanuel thought that a war hero would have a better chance of taking the open seat, and poured DCCC money into (and directed other contributors to) Duckworth's primary campaign. The result-- Duckworth eked out a victory in the primary, only to receive a mere 82,701 votes and lose to Peter Roskam by 4,200 votes.
James Carville has spent the past six years happily sequesterd in the gimp closet, visited occasionally by Dick Cheney and the angular harpy he refers to as his wife, Mary Matalin. Now that the Democrats have retaken the House and the Senate, he is apparently allowed out on furlough for more than just occasionally servicing Tim Russert. He has managed to reclaim a bit of the spotlight once again as he tilts irrelevantly at windmills and carps about Howard Dean.And, in case you didn't get the message, here's Howard.
In his performance on The Situation Room today today he was a skeletal rack of twitching indignation, castigating Dean for not giving Rahm more money to light his cigars with give to Democratic congressional candidates ("my heart bleeds for them" he laments with the melodrama button cranked all the way up to 11). I wanted Bay Buchanan to offer him a hankie tell him not to worry, Rahm would only have flushed more money down the shitter to follow the $4 million he threw after losers Diane Farrell and Tammy Duckworth, but she just nodded with a bobbling wag of angular features that made me think she could be auditioning for the role of his Second Missus.
"It was a great win for what I call the new Democratic Party," Dean said in a speech to the Association of State Democratic Chairs. "This is the new Democratic Party. The old Democratic Party is back there in Washington, sometimes they still complain a little bit."
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"The people who complain always get the headlines," Dean said, adding there are other high-profile Democrats who support his initiative. "But the fact is that this strategy not only works, it works in states Democrats have given up on for 30 years.
"We cannot give up on anybody."
Love,
st3veh
1 comment:
First of all, thank you for your thoughtful comments.
I shouldn't have been so flip about saying "you suck", but i'm sure rahm has said worse to and about Howard Dean. Rahm's efforts clearly didn't suck. However, in my opinion, his overall strategy wasn't the genius masterstroke meme we've been hearing in the mainstream media. (They just love to anoint the new "boy geniuses.") Even still, I would have probably not bothered commenting, if he could have been a little more gracious in victory.
I appreciate that Rahm made personal sacrifices in his role as DCCC chair, and I thank him for his tireless efforts. I'm sorry to hear that his son stopped speaking to him, but we all make choices in life, don't we? Certainly he knew what the requirements for the DCCC chair were, and what the sacrifices would be, and what the benefits would be. He is reaping the personal benefits now. I'll let him decide if it was worth it.
My main issue with him is that he refuses to acknowledge the team effort that was required to pull off the victory, not to mention the contentious relationship with dean and the progressives in the netroots. In my opinion, rahm's not the electoral genius the media would like him to be. he worked hard. i can appreciate that. Many people worked hard for this victory. Chuck Schumer can give Dean and the grassroots their share of the credit. Why can't Rahm?
You mention all the contributions that Rahm collected. I'm concerned exactly who and what the Democrats owe for those contributions. Ii'm sure there are plenty of corporate favors that the democrats must deliver on now that aren't exactly in the interest of middle class America. Say what you will about the amounts raised in the netroots, but the contributions that Kos, Bowers, Atrios, and the netroots raised don't have the same type of strings. I think that's a good thing.
I also think we need public financing of campaigns.
Maybe Rahm wouldn't have to go begging for campaign contributions and could spend a little more time with his family. Maybe candidates wouldn't have to spend most of their time begging for contributions, and could spend more time maybe actually reading the bills they vote for. Maybe we wouldn't have K street lobbyists writing legislation for our representatives. Maybe citizens would have a government that is more responsive to the needs of the American people, even the ones who can't write 5 figure checks.
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