Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Rahm Emanuel's Guide To Losing Elections

Jane Hamsher has rounded up a nice timeline of Rahm Emanuel's past electoral strategies:
1993: Rahm is the architect of NAFTA

1994: Unions stay home after NAFTA. Democratic turnout poor, Democrats give up 54 seats in House.

2005: Rahm as head of DCCC recruits pro-war Dems, threatens to cut funds for any Dem who runs opposing the war

2006: Ned Lamont beats Joe Lieberman by opposing the war, opens the floodgates for candidates to buck Rahm & fuel Democratic takeover of House. Rahm’s pro-war candidates lose.

2007: Rahm blames failure of his pet pro-war candidates on immigration. Makes Freshmen co-sponsor anti-immigrant SAVE act.

2007: SAVE Act triggers Hispanic Caucus revolt on the floor of the House

2007: Rahm demands Democratic candidates inoculate themselves against expected GOP attacks by moving to the right on immigration.” Says Hispanics “don’t vote, ignore ‘em.”

2008: Hispanics provide Obama’s margin of victory in Florida, Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado.

2009: Rahm Emanuel pushing “triggers” to kill President’s campaign promise of a public option in January

2009: Creigh Deeds reinacts Little Bighorn in Virgina after saying he’ll “opt-out” of public option and Democrats stay home

2009: Bill Owens endorses public option, pulls off surprising upset in district with GOP advantage

2009: John Garamendi defies beltway conventional wisdom that Democrat in CA-10 had to be conservative like Ellen Tausher to hold the seat, says he’ll vote against any bill that doesn’t have a public option (or has triggers), scores decisive win

2009: On behalf of banks, Rahm helps Democrats water down post-Enron investor protections in Sarbanes-Oxley

2009: Jon Corzine loses in the wake of “growing anti-Goldman [Sachs]” sentiment.”

2009: The day after the election, Senate Dems still pushing triggers.
Rahm's ethos is that the United States is an inherently conservative country. He tells people to govern as conservatives, so that when they're up for reelection they can run touting their super popular conservative record.

The problem is this is NOT an inherently conservative country, and if people wanted a Republican, they're a hell of a lot more likely to vote for a real one than some wanna-be who stands for nothing. Ask Creigh Deeds how well that approach turns out.

And it's not just that Rahm chooses conservative ideas to champion, either. Rahm picks winning political positions such as warmongering, attacking immigrants, selling yourself out to whatever industry can give you the most money.

Those would be great issues to champion if we lived in Rahm's world where every voter is a reactionary dumb as rocks conservative. Thankfully we don't live in this world, but we'll soon be governed by these morons if Obama and others continue to buy Emanuel's bullshit logic that caving on your campaign promises is the path to electoral triumph.

1 comment:

  1. JJ man I don't know if you've heard, but everyone in the obama white house is a far-left anarcho-communist influenced only by nihilist writers and depraved modern maoism. therefore, rahm emanuel is a brilliant strategic genius who works to undo the united states and advance his radical leftist agenda at every turn.

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