Rahm Emanuel: Epic Failure For An Epic Villain

Let's start with this morning's statement from Dan Cantor of Working Families Party after it was abnnounced last night that Emanuel's mega-money campaign failed to clear 50% in his reelection bid:

The next six weeks in Chicago will be the biggest fight of 2015 between the power of people and the power of big money. The good guys won round one. Forcing Mayor 1% into a run-off is a remarkable achievement. Along with the run-off, the progressive caucus on the Council is poised to make gains. Chicago is showing signs of the progressive wave that has washed over cities across America.

Please consider adding a nail-- even a small one-- to Rahm's political coffin here

Despised across the city, "Mayor 1%" is the first mayor in Chicago history to have ever been forced to face a runoff. Also wonderful, the seven progressive aldermen he tried to defeat at the polls either won their primaries outright or are the leading candidate in their impending run-off elections on April 7. As one well-placed Beltway Democratic consultant put it this morning, "Outside of Warren changing her mind and jumping in, nothing would change the presidential race more than Rahm losing. It would send serious shockwaves through Hillary's campaign."

As the Washington Post's Sean Sullivan reported last week, "The race crystallized some of the deep internal divisions in the Democratic Party as it prepares for the 2016 presidential campaign."

Garcia has emerged as a nothing-to-lose dissenting liberal voice who has channeled frustration with Emanuel’s rocky first term into an aggressive campaign against the mayor. The Chicago fight has become the latest front in a simmering nationwide battle between the establishment governing wing of the Democratic Party and a more restive, populist wing that is demanding a more openly liberal agenda.

Garcia, a Cook County commissioner, has picked up the torch of the economic populist movement embodied by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio. Emanuel is being cast as part of the establishment that includes Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton and has been accused of being too cozy with Wall Street and big banks at the expense of average Americans.

...In his campaign literature, Garcia has called Emanuel “Mayor 1%” while declaring himself a potential “mayor for all of us.” He has attacked Emanuel’s record on education, crime and wages, in an effort to brand him as being more devoted to the city’s wealthier residents than its working-class and poor constituents.

Yesterday's election sure didn't turn into the coronation Rahm was trying to buy. He raised over $16 million, primarily from a few super-wealthy donors whose special interests he has been serving as mayor. He put $7 million into TV ads alone, the vast majority dishonest negative-portrayals of his opponent and of his own record. Emanuel's SuperPAC also spent massively to wreck the careers and defeat all the most conscientious members of the City Council and replace them with his own corrupt corporate-subservient henchmen. The #1 target for Rahm's vitriol (and cash) was Alderman Scott Waguespack, who Emanuel attacked mercilessly but who beat his unfortunately named shill candidate Elise Doody-Jones 79.1% to 20.9%.

Again, all of Emanuel's City Council targets either have won outright or are positioned to win in the April run-off. These are the brave men and women who have taken the lead in fighting pernicious Rahm's corporate agenda:

• John Arena- 45.5%- 39.7%
• Toni Foulkes- 43.3%- 34.9%
• Leslie Hairston- 52.5%- 19.6%
• Rick Muñoz- 57.4%- 17.6%
• Rod Sawyer- 56%- 26.3%
• Nick Sposato- 53.5%- 16.2%
• Scott Waguespack- 79.1%- 20.9%

Carol Felsenthal, writing for Politico, predicts Rahm will win, although to do so he will "roam the frigid, windy wards of Chicago eating many slices of humble pie during the six weeks between Tuesday, February 24, and Tuesday, April 7." And when he does win, she writes, "I’ll also predict that Rahm, not known for introspection or self-criticism, will become an even more arrogant and impatient version of the mayor who appears to think he is smarter, more energetic and more disciplined than any of the Chicagoans he governs-- or certainly than any of his opponents and their supporters." 

This would be a great time for Chicagoans-- and all Americans-- to band together and do their part to rid our system of the garbage that is and has long been Rahm Emanuel. You can do it here; you'll feel good.