The media may not know it, but Master Rahm does: In the new House Democratic caucus, he will have daily contact with people who know just what he is

Although I was in Florida and without computer access for several days after the election (the lack of computer access is the subject of the first of two Tales from Jebland I want to share with you as soon as I have a chance to write them up), I'm sure I could have gotten some of the more detailed results if I'd really tried. But I didn't, and so there were a lot of results I didn't get until I returned home over the weekend.

One race I was really nervous about was California's 11th Congressional District, one of the earliest races Howie alerted DWT readers to, back when Jerry McNerney was struggling in the Democratic primary against opponents including a lavishly financed Rahmpuppet, just for the right to challenge one of the GOP's Sleaziest, "Dirty Dick" Pombo. My innate pessimism had me convinced that with all those barrels o' cash the GOP would pour into that district in the final days, the slime would slither over the finish line.

It didn't happen, as you can see from all those microphones in Jerry's face above.

As long-time DWT readers know, Jerry ran a Rahm-free campaign, and not necessarily by his choice. Master Rahm was apparently so peeved by the thumping his puppet got in the primary--where his Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is absolutely not supposed to be involved (and all through the primary season the DCCC continued to spew the grotesquely blatant lie that it was honoring the strict prohibition against its involvement in Democratic primaries)--that like a monstrously petulant child, he turned his back on the district, even when polls showed Jerry not only competitive with but ahead of Dirty Dick.

Clearly Master Rahm would rather have had the slimeball environmental rapist Pombo reelected once he couldn't have a Rahmocrat run against him. What the media and other genuflectors at the shrine of Rahm's supposed electoral genius don't or won't grasp is that the Master spends about 95 percent of his time, energy and resources fighting Democrats, not Republicans. (Note to Master Rahm: If you think 95 percent overstates the case, what would your estimate be? 90? 85?)

Well, Jerry McNerney ran himself a heckuva campaign, and I know because, having contributed a tiny bit of money back in the primary, I paid the price you always do when you give to a campaign: bombardment with endless pleas for more contributions. It's a pain in the butt, but you've got to do it. And I know from the steady stream of e-mails that Jerry's campaign never relaxed, never relented. In the end, everyone who participated in it played a role in ending the congressional career of one of the House of Representatives' rankest abusers of his office.

And in the end, in this case and a number of others around the country, the joke is on Master Rahm, because he's going to have these people in the House Democratic caucus who know just who and what he is. Their mere presence will provide a daily reminder that he's not only not much of a Democrat, but no sort of democrat.

I know a lot of really good Blue America candidates waged heroic but ultimately losing battles this year. But this latest attempt to wrest control of the soul of the party from the Beltway insiders is just beginning. If the media people would look just a bit closer, even they should be able to see that the party's real hero and visionary in this election isn't Master Rahm or his Senate henchman Chuck Schumer, but Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, whose vision of a 50-state party represents exactly the break that has been needed from the stifling culture of Beltwayism.

Democrats came oh so close in districts that Master Rahm would never have thought to contest, and in many others established a presence where the party hasn't had one in a generation or more. That wasn't just about this election, or even principally about this election. It was about building, or rather rebulding, a real national party.

To all those hearty warriors who fought the good fight but fell short, I hope we all make good our promise that we'll be there when they roar back into battle next time.