Progressive Group: Rahm's A 'Cancer On The Democratic Party,' Should 'Flatly Go Away'

[IndianaGreen]

Progressive Group: Rahm's A 'Cancer On The Democratic Party,' Should 'Flatly Go Away'

Sam Stein
First Posted: 09- 7-10 06:33 PM | Updated: 09- 7-10 06:36 PM

News that Chicago Mayor Richard Daley would not run for reelection produced almost instantaneous speculation that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, not shy about his ambitions to be Chicago's mayor, would make a run for the post.

It also quickly produced the reflexive Rahm-bashing that has become a staple of the progressive community, which increasingly views him as the point person for the ills that have beset this White House.

"Rahm is unfit to represent Democrats in office," Progressive Change Campaign Committee co-founder Adam Green said. "He's a cancer on the Democratic Party. Democrats' current 2010 situation is due to a weak Rahm Emanuel mentality that says water down real reform at the urging of Republicans and corporations, thus making Democratic reform less popular with voters than the real deal would have been. If Democrats had passed the overwhelmingly-popular public option and broken up the big banks when they had the chance, they'd be cruising for a landslide victory right now."

Over at Salon, Dave Weigel makes the argument that the PCCC statement is primarily a fundraising venture. And, indeed, Green's first push was a petition, already signed on its release by more than 1,700 people pledging not to support Emanuel for any run for political office.

But the crux of Rahm-hatred is not simply institutional benefit. There is a genuine sense that the White House Chief of Staff took the euphoria of the Obama brand and whittled it down into something more compromised and corporate. With that in mind, it would seem to make sense for the PCCC to cheer Emanuel's departure from the administration, not to lash out against a move to Chicago.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/07/rahm-emanuel-cancer-on-democratic-party-pccc_n_708106.html

[MannyGoldstein]

1. Here's the complete list of Rahm's positive accomplishments:

OK, I can't think of a single one.

Can you?

[IndianaGreen]

2. No blue linky?

Not even to Dial-A-Prayer?

[MannyGoldstein]

3. As I said, I can't think of a single one. nt

[Mojambo]

4. Would that he were the only one.

It'd be awesome to be rid of him though.

[Exilednight]

5. Something is rotten in Denmark ............

"News that Chicago Mayor Richard Daley would not run for reelection produced almost instantaneous speculation that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, not shy about his ambitions to be Chicago's mayor, would make a run for the post."

When the Guardian first broke the story that Rham would leave after the midterms, he stated he had his eye on the Mayor's job in Chicago, with the caveat that he would not run against Daley.

Funny how the timing works out.

[denimgirly]

6. Too Late -- That Cancer has Spread throughout the White House

At least cutting Rahm out is a good start. We can hope.
My guess he wont be replaced by a progressive like Howard Dean but someone equally as useless as Rahm.

[AtomicKitten]

7. A cancer? Good grief the hyperbole is thick up in here. nt

[Radical Activist]

8. A perfect example of the professional left.

They stoke resentment and drama for their own personal benefit, not to advance an issue.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[derby378]

17. Oh, fuck that noise...

If Rahm is standing in the way of Democrats on the Hill doing great things, then his usefulness to the nation has reached its end. It's not hate; it's just assessing the political reality.

[depakid]

10. If the trend continues, Rahm will have been the architect of not one but BOTH

of the most devastating mid term electoral defeats in modern American history.

That would be a pretty impressive accomplishment, no matter how one looked at it.

[wyldwolf]

15. perhaps you can explain that little piece of fiction

[depakid]

18. Fact- not fiction as some would have it (at least as to the first instance)

The second is still up in the air, so to speak- though the fact that we're even talking about the possibility (much less probability) ought to tell folks something.

Emmanuel was Clinton's key political aid and point man on NAFTA (among other things) and encouraged the "strategy" that pandered to the right and demoralized the Democratic base.

[wyldwolf]

19. ok, so you've made the claim a second time. Still, no explanation...

...or rather, evidence, that your explanation is correct.

Unfortunately for you, everyone outside the little "progressive" corner you hang in disagrees with you.

Five things were at play in 1994 that caused the losses:

1. The Democratic party of the 70s and 80s and grown corrupt.

The House Banking Scandal is a prime example of the corruption that was running rampant in Washington in the 7s and 80s, culminating with the Democrat's losses in 1994.

An article in the Boston Globe took up the issue of Democratic losses a week before the last presidential election. When a party holds power for too long, Adrian Wooldridge, reporter for The Economist, said in the article, "it grows fat and happy, it also grows corrupt." The classic example, he pointed out, is the Democratic Party of the 1970s and `80s, which, spoiled by generations of congressional power, "became a party of insiders and deal makers without any sense of the principles they stood for and eventually collapsed" when they were turned out in 1994.

2. Americans were increasingly distrustful of the Government.

By the early 1990s, distrust of the government, especially the entrenched power (that would be the Democrats) was evident among much of the public. In 1964, over 70 percent of the public said that they could trust Washington to do what was right most or all of the time; by early 1994, only 19 percent expressed similar confidence (Phillips 1994: 7). In 1964, when asked, "Would you say the government is run by a few big interests looking out for themselves or that it is run for the benefit of all people," nearly 40 percent more people agreed with the latter than with the former. In 1992 that sentiment had reversed itself, with 60 percent more people believing that the government was run for the benefit of special interests than those who believed it was run for the benefit of all. (Stanley and Niemi: 169).

3. The Democratic party had moved left out of the mainstream and became the party of special interests.

The more common explanation for the 1994 Republican Revolution, though, is that liberal Democratic ideals -- or at least the way they were presented -- no longer resonated with the majority of Americans. According to Ruy Teixeira, a fellow at the Center for American Progress and at the Century Foundation, the danger for the dominant party isn't ideological bankruptcy but ideological drift. "Certainly you can make the argument that, if a party's far enough away from the mainstream, if they don't lose they don't get enough impetus to correct their behavior."

As the party of governmental activism, the Democrats were bound to suffer from the rise of popular cynicism toward government. At the same time that Bill Clinton was winning the White House, voters preferred having "government cost less in taxes but provide fewer services" to having "government provide more services but cost more in taxes" by 54 to 38 percent (Milkis and Nelson 1994: 395)

4. Democratic retirements in red-trending districts

The Republicans' 1994 victory in the House was enabled by a large number of Democratic retirements: Twenty-two of the 54 seats the GOP picked up that year were open.

5. The first nation-wide movement of the Christian Right.

In 1990, Pat Robertson laid out his key organizing principle in his book The Millennium:

"With the apathy that exists today, a well organized minority can influence the selection of candidates to an astonishing degree."

Robertson said to the Denver Post in 1992,

"We want...as soon as possible to see a majority of the Republican Party in the hands of pro-family Christians..."

Robertson hired Ralph Reed as the Christian Coalition's political mastermind. To get their candidates elected Reed and Robertson taught them to use stealth: avoid publicity, stay out of debates, and work below the radar screen. Don't call attention to yourself. And then Christian Coalition campaigned on their behalf exclusively in fundamentalist, Pentecostal and Charismatic churches.

While candidates avoided the limelight, Christian Coalition Family Values Voter Guides were distributed to participating churches. Church telephone directories were used for "get-out-the-vote" telephone banks.

1994: A Watershed Year

By election time in 1994 Christian Coalition had distributed 40 million copies of the "Family Values Voter's Guide" in more than 100,000 churches nationwide. 1994 was the year Republicans took control of Congress for the first time in 40 years. It was also the year that Republicans made a huge gain in State Legislatures.

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Sorry - no sign of Rahm in any of that and no one else seems to push your theory.

[Name removed]

21. Deleted message

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[wyldwolf]

22. yep, a progressive source with anecdotal evidence and no sign of Rahm

Like I said, everyone outside the little "progressive" corner you hang in disagrees with you.

[depakid]

23. Rahm's position and activities are on the record

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahm_Emanuel

The dynamics- based on previous discussions, you'll never understand nor accept- even if you get stomped again.

and again.

Some people never learn. Sort of a fundy thing, in my experience. Seems to run most strongly with folks who live around them. Rubs off somehow.

Cultural osmosis maybe.

[wyldwolf]

25. which STILL doesn't prove your point

So far you've got one guy who stayed home in '94 because he was pouting and knows lots of other people who did, too. LOL.

[Hawkowl]

35. Read much?

Think less? Or do you just wet yourself over Rahm?

[wyldwolf]

37. Even less of a case then the original attempt.

LOL.

[demhistorian]

24. The left blogosphere, like that of the right, are both echo chambers

Gather enough people together to agree with you and fantasy becomes reality and any contradictory facts become suspect.

[wyldwolf]

26. Each time a party loses, an enthusiams gap is evident BUT...

... the only people who claim that gap is because the losing party didn't do things "their way" are those on the outer-most region of the party. I think the left are the only ones out of touch enough to lay it in the lap of one boogieman.

[depakid]

27. Not so at all- and certainly not in this case

Many of us are into the science and social science behind this stuff- and use our observations (and reading comprehension) to form theories about what's effective and what isn't.

Many of us are also policy wonks- and recognize that solving problems effectively (or at least fighting for solutions as opposed to telegraphing that half a loaf will do) is a win/win situation pragmatically (in the honest sense of the word) -and politically.

[demhistorian]

29. Completely so - how else to explain how you get historical facts so wrong

[depakid]

32. Please explain (irony impairment aside) why you can't accept historical fact on the record?

Is this some sort of pathology that's infected the vox populi so severely in America that there's no longer any objective basis for discussion?

[demhistorian]

34. an editorial from Huffington Post based on the authors anecdotal evidence is not "fact."

nor is totally disregarding a sourced rebuttal as "Repulicrat." That's where the disconnect is with the the Fox New right and the Netroots left. Any evidence to the contrary is suspect with you guys.

[demhistorian]

28. (posted wrong reply)

[smalll]

11. Well, looks like he's about to go - to be the next monarch of the inscrutable Hermit Kingdom --

of Chicago -- so byzantine, so provincial, and so corrupt, that it might as well be its own planet. We all wish Rahm well as its Mayor. May he last as long as a Daley!

[old mark]

12. Call it what you will I'd really rather see him elsewhere....very soon. nt

[olegramps]

13. Evidently Obama doesn't share the general distaste for Rahm.

[jefferson_dem]

14. Assholes.

Mocking cancer to further their shallow brand of politics? Shame on them.

[wyldwolf]

16. Let me make sure I understand this

"progresssives," who whine and pout and threaten not to vote unless they get their way are calling someone other than themselves a "cancer?"

[PVnRT]

30. So, progressives are a cancer. Thank you for finally coming out and saying it.

We all know you've been thinking it all these years.

[wyldwolf]

33. one chunk of hyperbole deserves another. By the way...

..Remember back in the day where threads like this would get 100 recs or more? Glad those days are gone.

[wyldwolf]

31. Let me amend this to say

I'm pointing out the irony in what the author is saying - not calling anyone a cancer. I'll leave that up to the fine progressives who think the OP is correct.

[Hawkowl]

36. Third way freaks are the cancer

Progressives aren't threatening to stay home. We're just not gonna vote for third way, New Democrat bullshit that continues to fuck over the economy. Examples of DLC disasters that have directly lead to our economic disaster include, NAFTA, repealing Glass-Steagall, Telecom Act of '96. So, Rubin, Emmanuel, Geithner and all of that ilk are welcome to grovel before any rethuglican they see fit, begging on their knees, and slobbering for the right's money, affection and votes.

[wyldwolf]

38. But you just admitted you're threatening to stay home UNLESS...

... you're advocating a third party. If "third way, New Democrat bullshit" is all you have to choose from (which is what "progressives" seem to think) then you by not voting for it you either threatening to stay home or your advocating voting third party. Which is it?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

20. What has this Adam Green dick ever done for the party?

[Phx_Dem]

39. Progressives once again attacking their own party.

What a fucking surprise.

I wouldn't donate a dime, lift a finger to help, or vote for a progressive. They can go fuck themselves.