DWT WON'T HAVE RAHM EMANUEL TO KICK AROUND ANYMORE-- THOUGH NOT SOON ENOUGH

Although I would have preferred an announcement of his immediate resignation, DCCC Chair Rahm Emanuel has just done the best thing in his entire tenure at the Committee. He told colleagues he needs to spend more time with the family and will take his contentious ass out of the running for the next term, leaving open the possibility that the Democratic Leadership will find a DCCC head who will support candidates espousing and fighting for Democratic values and principles. What a concept!

There are a great many naive and superficial Democrats who have no clue how corrosive Emanuel is for the Party. I'm almost sick of fighting with these nitwits and blind imbeciles but I did leave a comment over at Daily Kos about why the people who assume Emanuel was doing a good job are dead wrong:

There is a misapprehension that Emanuel "claws and scratches to win seats" backed up by exactly nothing except Emanuel's own p.r. He's a fighter alright but he fights against anti-war Democrats. He fights against progressives. He fights against grassroots Democrats. He fights against any Democrat with a clear and positive message who wants to challenge a Republican incumbent. Rahm Emanuel is good for raising corporate cash from Big Business interests looking for weak corrupt political hacks in the Democratic Party to replace the weak corrupt political hacks they own in the GOP. He is an absolute disaster as a DCCC chair so far and, as far as I can see, the best thing he has done during his tenure is to announce that he won't try to hold onto the post again.

His newest stunt-- completely in character-- is to sabotage the election of poll-leading grassroots, anti-war progressive Jerry McNerney in his battle against Richard Pombo (possibly the worst Republican in the entire House). Emanuel tried shoe-horning his own issueless, corporate Inside-the-Beltway shill into the primary, spent a ton and leveraged big name Dems, created a lot of bad feelings and wound up with a pathetic 28%. McNerney can win this race and a decent DCCC chair would get behind the race. Instead Emanuel has told everyone who will listen to his poisonous whispering that the race isn't winnable and he doesn't want to waste money on it.

I have personally spoken to at least half a dozen progressive candidates who have told me that the dirty campaigning Emanuel has unleashed on them was beyond what they ever expected from their own party. One of his filthy tactics-- which he and Shumer employed to such devastating effect on Paul Hackett-- has been to tell a candidate's funders that any more contributions will be looked at as an unfriendly act towards the Democratic Party. This is a fighter, alright, but the only winner in these battles are Republicans. Emanuel's departure from the DCCC couldn't happen soon enough.