Rahm’s List

Fox News reports that Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel has been in touch with Governor Rod Blagojevich, and had presented him with a list of acceptable candidates to fill Obama’s senate seat.

Emanuel is widely credited with engineering the Democratic takeover of the House in the 2006 election. But closer examination tells a different story. John Walsh, writing in Counterpunch, tells of Emanuel’s efforts that year to infuse the House with new pro-war Democrats.

Long ago Rahm chose 22 key races, open or Republican seats, where Dems might win. By any reasonable criteria, all the candidates chosen by Rahm, save perhaps for one, were pro-war as is Emanuel himself. In two cases Rahm had to put in considerable dollars and effort in the primaries to drive out antiwar candidates. He drove out Cegelis in Illinois’s 6th CD, at the cost of one million dollars, in favor of Tammy (“Stay the course”) Duckworth who lost in the general election. In California’s 11th CD primary, Emanuel backed the prowar Steven Filson who lost to the antiwar candidate, Jerry McNerney, who went on to win in the general election.

It’s a sure bet that Emanuel’s list of acceptable senate candidates will be pro-war, and that Duckworth will be on it. (She is an Iraq vet who lost her legs over there, but still supports Bush’s war effort.) Hopefully she will be tarnished by being on the list, and will have to move on.

Looking at all 22 candidates hand-picked by Rahm, we find that 13 were defeated, and only 8 won! (One is still undecided.) [9 eventually won.]And remember that this was the year of the Democratic tsunami and that Rahm’s favorites were handsomely financed by the DCCC. Tammy Duckworth, for example, was infused with $3 million ­ and was backed in the primary by HRC, Barack Obama, John Kerry, etc. The Dems have picked up 28 seats so far, maybe more. So out of that 28, Rahm’s choices accounted for 8!

Since the Dems only needed 15 seats to win the House, Rahm’s efforts were completely unnecessary. Had the campaign rested on Rahm’s choices, there would have been only 8 or 9 new seats, and the Dems would have lost.

Emanuel will be the gatekeeper for Obama, and the arbiter of many positions of power over policy. Two things about him are evident: – he is rabidly pro-Israel (a dual citizen), and pro-Iraq war.

Progressives are in for many more unpleasant surprises as this caterpillar administration becomes a full butterfly.