Rahm Emanuel-- The Root Of All Evil?

Yesterday 4 horrible reactionary Blue Dogs-- Kyrsten Sinema (AZ), Dan Lipinski (IL), Jim Cooper (TN) and Gwen Graham (FL)-- broke ranks with their fellow Democrats to vote against Nancy Pelosi as Speaker. Graham is new to Congress, but very ambitious and eager to jump to statewide office as soon as she can by proving how "bipartisan" she is; the other 3 vote with Boehner on crucial issues far more than they vote with Pelosi anyway. How do we get Democrats as bad as Sinema, Cooper, Lipinksi and Graham? Good question; all 4 belong in the Republican Party. (Sinema started out running for office as a Green and a Socialist and has changed her political stripes instantly on any issue she thought would profit her ugly careerist ambitions. Last session she had the single worst voting record of any current Democrat in the House.)

The idea that Democrats can get away with this kind of behavior is traceable right back to the king of the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, transactional corporate whore and über-unpopular Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel, once head of the DCCC-- and the man who showed Democrats that they could spit in the eye of the party base and still prosper. Yesterday, Chicago blogger Fred Klonsky warned his readers that Emanuel wasn't just encouraging corrupt conservative Democrats but that he was using his mammoth corporate warchest to try to defeat local progressives.

Alderman Scott Waguespack has been "a leading voice of the small Progressive Caucus in the Chicago City Council. His has been a voice against the corporate agenda of the Mayor. He voted no on the Mayor’s budget." There are 8 members of the City Council Rahm is trying to defeat, especially Waguespack and Toni Foulkes. Other members of the progressive caucus include Bob Fioretti, who is running against Emanuel, Leslie Hairston, Roderick Sawyer, Ricardo Munoz, Nick Sposato and John Arena.

Members of the City Council’s Progressive Caucus have denounced the $2.2 million super PAC created to re-elect Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his City Council allies as a bullying attempt to stifle dissent by “taking out” its eight members.

On Tuesday, “Chicago Forward” proved them right by making two of eight Caucus members its first targets: Aldermen Toni Foulkes (15th) and Scott Waguespack (32nd).

In a costly direct-mail piece going out this week, “Chicago Forward” is targeting Waguespack for casting one of four “no” votes against a 2015 budget that raised the city’s parking tax again to generate $10 million needed to double the year-round army assigned to patch potholes and repair crumbling streets.

...We need to keep and expand the Progressive Caucus.

Blue America's first candidate for 2015 is Jesus "Chuy" Garcia, the candidate most likely to defeat Emanuel's reelection efforts. If you'd like to help him do that... here's the place.