RAHM EMANUEL MAY NOT HAVE HAD MUCH TO DO WITH WINNING MOST SEATS, BUT HE SURE IS GOOD AT GETTING OUT HIS "ME, ME, ME" MESSAGE

Kevin Federline's publicist is spinning away. According to him K-Fed is a free man. Yeah... and Rahm Emanuel led the Democrats to victory on Tuesday.

Yesterday I found an e-mail from New York Sun reporter Josh Gerstein asking me to call him about a story he was doing on Rahm Emanuel. I hadn't checked that e-mail account in 2 days so I knew I was late. I called Gerstein at around 9 PM, ascertained that he wasn't related to the Lieberman stooge of the same name, and said I was ready for my 10 minutes of New York Sun fame. He told me it was too late but that he had lifted a quote from my story on Rahm on DWT (if one uses the "search this blog" function above one will find 165 stories mentioning "Rahm," even more than mention "Foley"). He also told me I wouldn't be happy with the result because it was mostly Rahm's friends giving his side of the story. And it was too late for him to re-open the story; it was after midnight in New York. Draw your own conclusions about journalistic integrity, etc. And about Mr. Gerstein's story, which I haven't bothered to read. How is it?

Is it a puff piece about how Rahm recruited brilliantly? Strategized brilliantly? Executed brilliantly? Deserves a huge role in the leadership? Does it talk about how he defeated the Syrians on the Golan Heights, does a mean ballet dance and eats lox and pastrami with his mouth open... while talking about taking over the world? Was it all about what a tough guy he is-- our Tom DeLay, our Karl Rove, a modern day version of Chicago's horrendous political boss, Richard Daley, the remnants of whose still insidious machine-- rather than any actual people-- he represents in Washington? I've read it all before.

I bet it didn't mention Don Tomczak, the indicted former city Water Department boss who was instrumental, in the worst sense of the word, to Emanuel's meteoric and sleazy rise in Chicago ward politics. Emanuel's foray into electoral politics began with a vicious fight against a non-machine, grassroots progressive, Nancy Kazak. Even with the Daley-Tomczak machine's heavy, heavy hand, Emanuel squeaked by with 51% of the vote-- and an abiding hatred for all thing grassroots and all things liberal. A couple days ago the Chicago Tribune reminded readers how Daley had "sent his patronage armies out for Rahm. One was commanded by Tomczak. They had thugs and tough guys on the city payroll, goons and eager apprentices, some of them even qualified for their government jobs, but most of them were qualified to muscle the vote for Emanuel. Tomczak testified to helping Emanuel and others in federal court at the trial of Daley's patronage chief, the convicted Robert Sorich."

Yesterday I spoke with Nancy Pelosi on the phone. She sounded so idealistic outlining how she wants to fight corruption. But when I gentled reminded her that corruption isn't just a Republican disease she kicked back-- hard. The Republican culture of corruption is systemic. It is. Let's hope Rahm's never gets that far. It will if she doesn't do something about it... before it's too late.

But it wasn't only lazy dipshits at New York parakeet cage lining papers who were transposing Rahm's talking points today. His disingenuous crap even made it's way to London where The Times claimed it's correspondent examines "how the party masterminded its move to the centre and reined in liberals to seize hostile territories. They wear cowboy boots, chew tobacco, love hunting, hate abortion, want less government spending-- and some voted for Ronald Reagan. Now they are headed to Congress as Democrats." Sounds like the Rahm message, It's a line of bullshit. He did manage to mastermind the election of one "converted" (we'll be watching) Republican, Tim Mahoney in FL-16, and he definitely helped some right-of-center Democrats get elected in Indiana and one in North Carolina. But other than that, most of the Democrats elected are thoroughly progressive, independent-minded and decidedly not part of Rahm's DLC vision for a pro-business, Republican-lite Democratic Party. Even The Times writer can't help but mention that "the Democrats' victory was above all an overwhelming repudiation of the conflict in Iraq." He then blathers on with all this Emanuel-manufactured fiction about conservative Democrats. Confusing progressive John Yarmuth, populist Senator-elect John Tester, and a bevy of newly elected mainstream Democrats like Harry Mitchell (AZ) and Nancy Boyda (KS) with problematic conservatives like Heath Shuler and Baron Hill the writer goes on about how "these new Democrats represent what Rahm Emanuel, the congressman who masterminded its takeover of the House, described as the future of the party, and the key to its presidential hopes." What utter hogwash-- though not as bad as what was to follow:

The result was rich vindication for Mr. Emanuel and other top Democrats who have spent two years recruiting candidates to make the party competitive in western states they had all but ceded in recent years. [No mention of Howard Dean's 50 state strategy, which Emanuel never stopped denouncing.]
Mr Emanuel and other centrists have told the incoming Democrat leadership-- which is far more liberal than the new influx of moderates-- that the party’s liberal wing must not dominate the agenda. The new crop of moderates will be anxious to keep the party rooted to the middle ground...
Ironically, the greatest losses for Republicans came in the North East, the last redoubt of the party’s mainstream moderates. They were routed.

Yes, isn't that ironic? The irony though, is that moderate Republicans were replaced not by Rahmish conservatives but by Rahm-hated/Rahm-hating progressives.

Did Emanuel also... what was the word?... mastermind the victories in the Senate and governorships and state legislatures? Was it because of the inspiration from the loathsome Rahm Emanuel that America's youth turned out Tuesday in record numbers-- primarily to expel Republicans?

The answer is no. Democrats, independents and even moderate Republicans turned out because they were dissatisfied with Republican leadership across the board. E.J. Dionne gets it about right in today's Washington Post, "American voters, in their wisdom, ended an era on Tuesday. They rejected a poorly conceived war policy in Iraq that has weakened the United States. They rejected a harshly ideological approach to politics that cast opponents as enemies of the country's survival. They rejected a president so determined to win an election that he was willing to slander his opponents by saying: 'The Democrat approach in Iraq comes down to this: The terrorists win and America loses.' The voters decided there was no decency in that... The good news for Democrats is that their candidates, moderates and liberals alike, ran on two common themes: that the Bush Iraq policy had to change and that the Washington establishment simply does not understand the personal struggles and economic insecurities confronting so many Americans."

Today's Hill points out the patent fallacy of Emanuel's relentless press juggernaut, which lazy and clueless TV and newspaper writers have been eating up, like so many dumb hogs at a feeding trough. Aaron Blake writes that "four candidates whose primary opponents were supported by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) went on to win anyway. A fifth could join them if Democrat Larry Kissell defeats Rep. Robin Hayes (R) in a yet-undecided race in North Carolina's 8th District. Democrats John Yarmuth in Kentucky, Zack Space in Ohio, Jerry McNerney in California and Carol Shea-Porter in New Hampshire were all seen as less attractive options in tough districts early on. [He's forgetting New York's 19th CD, where Rahm supported another of his "ex"-Republicans against Congressman elect John Hall.] But Space and McNerney won thanks to corruption issues dogging Reps. Bob Ney (R-Ohio) and Richard Pombo (R-Calif.), while liberals Yarmuth and Shea-Porter appeared to benefit big from the national environment... The DCCC has said it was neutral in the Yarmuth and Space races, but DCCC leaders met with Yarmuth's opponent and DCCC chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) gave $7,500 to Space's opponent. The DCCC also endorsed McNerney's and Shea-Porter's primary opponents."

In Emanuel's lame, blind and ill-conceived rush to grab the 15 seat majority he so lusted for-- primarily because of all the power and... opportunities that come with that-- he announced a red-to-blue program. He focused on 21 Republican seats. 11 of them won and 3 could be described as conservatives, ex-Congressman Baron Hill, ex-Congressman Nick Lampson and ex-football player Heath Shuler. The other 8 are mainstream Democrats, predominantly progressives.

Reacting to polling a few minutes before voting started-- and too late to help substantially-- he finally bestowed this status on eventual winners like John Yarmuth, Tim Walz, Jason Altmire, John Hall, Jerry McNerney and the three grassroots Democrats in tight recount fights, Larry Kissell, Victoria Wulsin and Eric Massa (all of whom would have won had Emanuel not been squandering DCCC funds on those who "wear cowboy boots, chew tobacco, love hunting, hate abortion, want less government spending-- and some voted for Ronald Reagan." Great job, Rahm.

A little unrelated Blue America update. When the Blue America Team first got together and figured out how to impact a few races the DCCC wasn't weighing in on, we figured the best case scenario would be to get out song played legitimately on the radio and then a couple months later customize it into 60-second ads. The only place we actually pulled that off was on a radio station in upstate New York, WKZE, an adult-alternative station whose listeners already love Rickie Lee Jones music and love Squirrel Nut Zippers music. "Have You Had Enough?" was a heavily played song for them and it became familiar in the three congressional districts that station covers: CT-05, NY-20 and NY-19. We customized the song and we customized videos for the 3 progressive candidates running there: Kristen Gillibrand, Chris Murphy, and John Hall. We ran several thousand dollars worth of ads reminding voters that it was time to throw Nancy Johnson out. They did. And they also threw out John Sweeney and Sue Kelly.


OTHERS ARE STARTING TO NOTICE THAT RAHM TAKING CREDIT FOR THE VICTORY TUESDAY IS LIKE THE COCK WHO TAKES CREDIT FOR THE SUNRISE

Sheldon Drobny, founder of Air America, ended his Huffington Post piece with a sentence familiar to most DWT readers: "I would suggest that the Democrats got control of the House not because of Rahm Emanuel, but in spite of him."