Can Rahm Emanuel And The Corporate Dems Be Stopped From Wrecking The Democratic Party?

Many years ago, I was new to the big left blogger listserv and had the temerity to harshly criticize then-DCCC chairman Rahm Emanuel. The push-back was overwhelming, one progressive blogger going so far as to suggest I might be a Republican operative. The left blogosphere has matured since then and Rahm and corporate Dems like him regularly come under more thoughtful scrutiny than they did back them. But there are still many in the Democratic Party-- including some confused souls who imagine they themselves are "progressives"-- who count themselves among fans of Rahm and other venal characters-- albeit venal characters in blue t-shirts-- like him. To them, the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- Blue Dogs, New Dems, assorted corporate shills-- are still first and foremost, Democrats. I guess… as long as "Democrats" has no meaning whatsoever beyond a nearly random choosing up of professional, careeristic teams.

We just went through a very bitter and divisive fight in L.A.'s West Side congressional district (CA-33), a race with 18 candidates but that, primarily, pitted 2 progressives-- state Senator Ted Lieu (who will face Sheldon Adelson-financed Republican Elan Carr in November) and Marianne Williamson-- against 2 from the corporate, Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- Wendy Greuel and Matt Miller. Inside the Beltway, far, far, far from the iconic California coastal district-- one of the 5 districts from which national Democrats get immense amounts of money for their campaigns-- there was certitude that one of the conservatives was the rightful successor to Henry Waxman, even though Waxman was a stalwart progressive on everything not related to the Middle East. The Clinton Machine was certain Greuel-- whose weak-but-arrogant campaign team was straight out of Clintonland-- would overwhelm her rivals and the serious Beltway centrist wonks were equally certain that Miller, one of their own, was destined for the seat. (And Miller did win a few precincts in Republican-leaning Pacific Palisades.) On jungle primary night, the low-turnout election results-- looking for 2 winners regardless of party-- for the 5 top vote getters looked like this:

• Elan Carr, Republican- 17,904 (21%)
• Ted Lieu, progressive Democrat- 15,870 (19%)
• Wendy Greuel, corporate Democrat- 13,976 (17%)
• Marianne Williamson, progressive independent- 10,789 (13%)
• Matt Miller, corporate Democrat- 9,973 (12%)

It's worth mentioning that there are Greuel and Miller supporters who felt passionately that their wretched candidates were the best choices and that they would do the best jobs as a Member of Congress. I even spoke with a bona fide progressive who insisted that Greuel-- or at least Greuel's mom-- was absolutely fantastic. And in the bubble of DC, there are people who still feel that way about Rahm Emanuel. Yes, still! Maggie Haberman looked at the phenomenon for Politico a couple days ago: Rahm Emanuel: D.C. Hero, Chicago Goat. "In Washington," she posits, "he is 'Rahmbo,' the ruthless, profane operative who survived the Clinton White House despite being vanquished by the first lady. In Chicago, Rahm Emanuel has been dubbed the 'murder mayor' by one critic, a snipe at the city’s high homicide rate." Is there a contrast? Only in the way professional DC operatives access his traits, as opposed to real people who have to live with the results of them. In fact, it's almost as a Rahmish p.r. op got to write the second paragraph (which would not be unheard of): "In Washington, he’s the campaign mastermind who reportedly mused about a 2016 presidential run if Hillary Clinton takes a pass. In Chicago, he’s the ham-fisted gentrifer who’s been tripped up by the city’s entrenched racial politics."

[J]ust nine months out from the next election, Emanuel is unexpectedly vulnerable, with an approval rating that is perilously low. The comedown for the Illinois native, who terrified staffers and donors over more than a decade in Washington, has been striking. So has been the contrast between how he’s regarded in D.C., New York and Los Angeles-- as opposed to some wards of Chicago.

A Chicago Sun-Times poll released last month showed that Emanuel would draw just 29 percent of the vote if the election were held then. His 8 percent showing in the survey among black voters, a crucial voting bloc for him last time, creates a truck-size hole for another candidate to drive through.

Emanuel still has the upper hand in his battle to retain his job. He has $7 million in the bank and the power of incumbency behind him. The one challenger who gives his supporters agita, Cook County Supervisor Toni Preckwinkle--an African-American woman with name recognition who could fare well in Chicago’s identity politics-- has said she’s not running. She also hasn’t closed the door on the prospect, but her campaign account holds a tenth of the cash of Emanuel’s.

As his fundraising gears up for his campaign, Emanuel is hosting a high-dollar event on June 20 with Bill Clinton and indie band The Head and the Heart, according to an email invitation obtained by Politico.

Emanuel’s allies say that a Sun-Times poll is an outlier, although they concede he’s not in a comfortable position politically.

“He’s had his challenges,” said James Carville, who’s known Emanuel since the two worked for Bill Clinton. “I think he’ll win reelection but he’s got to run a good campaign. Nothing’s easy in politics.” Ultimately, Carville added, people “have a lot of faith in Rahm.”

Still, his adversaries smell blood and plan to make the most of the next year.

“I hope he loses, and I will work very hard to have somebody else [replace him],” said Karen Lewis, the African-American head of the Chicago Teachers Union. Emanuel was widely reported to have said “Fuck you, Lewis” during a private meeting with her in 2012 about a new contract. (He did not deny it.)

“If you’ve seen any of the polling, he’s in serious trouble. No one seems to think that he’s doing a very good job. I think he is not suited to this kind of work,” said Lewis, who dubbed him “the murder mayor” last year after a big uptick in crime soon after he took office.

Some of the city’s problems are out of Emanuel’s control, and he’s tried hard to ease crime, with some success. He extended the school day for kindergartners, an achievement he frequently touts. But he’s had difficulty mastering the stagecraft needed to appease different constituencies in big-city politics.

Instead, Emanuel has approached the job like a latter-day Michael Bloomberg, a business-minded centrist without much interest in bending to opposition. Except unlike Bloomberg, he has no personal fortune with which to appease critics and enhance political friendships.

Really? No personal fortune? Well, ok, he's not a billionaire, but when he sold his soul to Wall Street between his stint getting NAFTA passed for Clinton and then being given a rotten borough so he could grab power in Congress, he was paid $16.2 million, not just a heft lifetime bribe but something only someone Inside the Beltway would describe as "no personal fortune," who then goes on to sympathize with Rahmbo's plight: "It’s a particularly difficult task at a time when income inequality has driven voters in Democratic-leaning cities further to the left. In Chicago, class politics fall along starkly racial lines." And she isn't the only one Inside the Beltway sympathetic to Rahm-- and other sold-out corporate whores like him who bedevil the Democratic Party from the right.

[T]he problems Emanuel is facing in Chicago haven’t, for the most part, hurt his standing beyond city limits. The mayor has been heralded on the cover of Time magazine and has visited the late-night television couches of Jimmy Fallon and Conan O’Brien. Last year, Democrats in Washington whispered among themselves that Emanuel, on one of his frequent trips to the capital, had raised the idea of him running for president in 2016 if Hillary Clinton did not. Emanuel later denied he had an interest in running for president.

One Washington Democrat who’s worked with Emanuel in D.C. marveled at the degree to which his current political woes haven’t penetrated the Beltway.

“People can’t believe” he’s having a problem, said the Democrat. “They just expect Rahm’s kicking ass.”

To his allies and supporters, Emanuel remains the same fire-plug-size barrel of energy who, for all his foibles, is in politics to do good.

“I think Rahm’s been a good mayor and in a very difficult time,” said David Axelrod, Obama’s former senior adviser who recently wrote an op-ed rebutting a Chicago Tribune editorial writer who dubbed him “an elitist whose swagger doesn’t match his triumphs.”

Not everyone agrees.

“Rahm Emanuel comes in with a swagger. … that is ‘my way or the highway,’” said American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten. “And some people like that initially because they think you’re taking on all of the multiple interests in a city. But if you look at the most effective mayors, the most effective governors, the most effective executives, people find ways to bridge differences and work together to move an agenda.”

She added, “He’s very connected with the power elite in Washington and Chicago, which is why the power elite doesn’t see [his current struggles].”

Rahm's strategy-- always his strongest suit-- is to paint his fatal flaws as just a matter of style. “There are times I need to pull back and listen. I understand that… I was not nostalgic that this [job] was going to be a walk. I didn’t say change would be easy. I said the change would be worth the struggle. There is slow but steady progress. But we’ve got to make sure we don’t go back.” Many voters in Chicago see right through the bullshit-- even if his Beltway fans don't. "Emanuel insiders," write Haberman, "believe if he can present a credible narrative-- of a mayor willing to offend for the sake of getting things done-- it will be enough to win reelection… The good news for Emanuel, one ally said, is that 'you can’t beat someone with no one.'"