Beltway Pundits Are Surprised Chicago Is Rejecting Rahm Emanuel-- Normal People Aren't

The Sun-Times mayoral poll shows Rahm Emanuel being decisively beaten by two possible opponents, both progressives. Cook County Board president Toni Preckwinkle would crush him 55.23% to 30.98% and Teachers Union president Karen Lewis is ahead 45.35% to 36.44%. The only demographic group that seems to be able to stomach Emanuel are whites… and Preckwinkle even beats him-- 54.83% to 34.01%-- among whites. In May we looked at another poll showing that most Chicagoans think Emanuel was a mistake they;re not willing to make twice. That poll showed that "only 29 percent would support him if the mayoral election were held today."

Emanuel's strategy is to go to the wealthy special interests, on whose behalf his entire career has been based, and suck in enough money to scare off potential challengers. He's rapidly approaching $10 million in his campaign war chest-- and that's not grassroots money.

The African American voters who got sucked into voting for him last time because of the Obama connection quickly realized they'd been had and are not likely to vote for him again. Clinton and Obama may endorse him again but voters now know first hand what he is and how terrible he is for their families. He's completely alienated African-American voters by instigating Chicago’s first teachers strike in 25 years, closing 50 public schools, opening new charter schools and unveiling plans to build new schools and school additions, with the educational largesse heavily concentrated on the (white) North Side. He's being blame for the rise in crime and for the inept handling of the murder epidemic.

A creature of Wall Street and banksterism, Emanuel is the embodiment of everything that's wrong with the corporate takeover of the Democratic Party and the destruction of the proud party brand. His first mark on the nation was as Clinton's hatchet man in twisting enough Democrats' arms to push through NAFTA, which Democrats had defeated under George H.W. Bush. Without Emanuel, then a brutish but little-known White House aide, NAFTA would likely have never passed. He and then-GOP Majority Leader Tom DeLay road rough shod over Members who understood how devastating NAFTA would be for their constituents and for the U.S. economy. But Clinton was anxious to deliver for Wall Street-- especially to deliver on something Bush had been unable to-- and Emanuel was the most bombastic and thuggish operative he had in his arsenal.

Emanuel was personally rewarded by Wall Street with a 2 and a half year make-work position for Wasserman Perella-- and on the board of Freddie Mac-- where he made $16.2 million. That was a payoff for someone with no finance or investment experience and no MBA and no qualifications for the job whatsoever. (The Freddie Mac appointment from Clinton brought in another half million dollars or so and Emanuel was at the center of a series of scandals involving illegal campaign contributions and shady accounting.) His next gift from the Establishment was a "rotten borough" congressional district that was slated to disappear.

He was elected in 2002 and put on the House Financial Services Committee, the home of Congress' most crooked members, from which the greatest amount of money can be extorted from Wall Street. During his relatively short time on the committee, the financial sector contributed $3,038,023 to Emanuel's re-election campaigns. He was alas able to build power inside the caucus by directing millions of Wall Street dollars to colleagues less willing to sell their souls to Wall Street directly.

When Bob Matsui died at the end of the 2004 cycle, Emanuel was given the DCCC chair, unheard of for someone with no seniority at all. He immediately started recruiting conservatives from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party and succeeded in passing them off as actual Democrats, although almost all of them were exposed and subsequently defeated in 2010, leading directly to the current catastrophic Republican control of Congress. Among the conservative Democrats Emanuel recruited who went on to amass repulsive voting records and were soon defeated, disaffected Democratic base voters refusing to vote for them again:

• Harry Mitchell (AZ)
• Tim Mahoney (FL)
• Brad Ellsworth (IN)
• Baron Hill (IN)
• Nancy Boyda (KS)
• Mike Arcuri (NY)
• Heath Shuler (NC)
• Charlie Wilson (OH)
• Zack Space (OH)
• Jason Altmire (PA)
• Chris Carney (PA)
• Nick Lampson (TX)

You can fool some of the people some of the time, but… And now it looks like Emanuel himself may well fall victim to his own chicanery and hubris. His goal-- running against Mark Kirk when his Senate seat comes up in 2016-- could be seriously imperiled if he's is humiliated in his own reelection bid in Chicago. Blue America will be keeping an eye on this one-- and working to do whatever we can to end Emanuel's disastrous career in politics.

Toni says she isn't running, but Karen looks like a good bet