BIG LOSER YESTERDAY-- RAHM EMANUEL AND THE POLITICS OF OLD LINE BOSSISM

Last night was another bad one for the DCCC's ne'er do well, Rahm Emanuel. Not unlike the race in CA-11, where Jerry McNerney and California grassroots, progressive and anti-war Democrats told the corporate whore and Daley machine paper tiger that everyone now sees him to be, voters in New Hampshire and New York told Emanuel to take a hike. Although the DCCC is bound by intra-party rules to not interfere in local contested primaries, Emanuel has consistently tried to weed out populists, progressives, anti-war activists, independent thinkers and any Democrats he suspects of being unfriendly to the Big Business interests of whose bribes he hopes to avail himself once the Democrats take back The House.

Emanuel has made a habit of aggressively pushing bad choices, more often than not ambitious Republicans with a shiny new Democratic Party patina. In NY-19, his choice for Congress, Judy Aydelott was soundly defeated by grassroots progressive John Hall. Although he had solemnly sworn to remain neutral in the race, donors have complained that Emanuel and his team have told them not to contribute to Hall because Aydelott is the DCCC's candidate. That's his modus operandi, the tactic he and Chuck Schumer used to scuttle Paul Hackett's race in Ohio. No one is fooled by Emanuel any longer and everyone is just counting the days 'til his promised resignation takes effect. Meet John Hall today at the Blue America live blog session at Firedoglake at 5:30 PM (EST).

Emanuel took an even worse drubbing in New Hampshire, where progressive, grassroots activist Carol Shea-Porter beat Emanuel's handpicked, business-as-usual, Establishment shill, Jim Craig, 54%-38%. The strongly pro-peace Shea-Porter beat Emanuel and his puppet even though Craig had 5 times as much money at his disposal

The vindictive and poisonous Emanuel can now be expected to try to torpedo Shea-Porter and Hall, just as he is trying to do to the McNerney campaign in California.

An even bigger story, though, seems to be brewing. There is a virtual tie between progressive good-government reformer Donna Edwards and corrupt, reactionary, corporate shill Al Wynn in MD-04. Donna leads by over 700 votes after an election day marred with all kinds of shenanigans by Wynn's political machine. The bulk of the voting problems were in Montgomery County where there remain thousands of uncounted provisional ballots. Official turnout is absurdly and suspiciously low in Montgomery County meaning there could be more. Also, a quick read of the Prince Georges County precincts makes it seem like a lot of the uncounted precincts may be places where Edwards is strong. This is a developing story-- far, far more important than the silliness about Chaffey beating the Club for Growth of Fascism candidate in Rhode Island. The only part of that that is significant is that the national Repugs spent over $1,000,000 to help a senator who declared in 2004 that he would not vote for Bush for president. Sheldon Whitehouse, a moderate Democrat, is expected to beat him in November.


AFTERTHOUGHT: MINNESOTA COMES THROUGH!

Slandered by the far right, progressive Keith Ellison is poised to become the first Muslim in the House after decisively beating several opponents in his blue, blue, blue Minneapolis district.


UPDATE: WYNN TRYING TO STEAL EDWARDS' VICTORY IN MD-04

Late Wednesday afternoon The Post is still claiming the Wynn-Edwards race is "too close to call" although it is abundantly clear that the thuggish Wynn political machine, in cahoots with the Republicans who control the vote counting in Maryland, are desperately trying to steal the election.