“You know what our party thinks? We’re good people with good ideas. That’s just enough, isn’t it?’ Being tough enough, mean enough, and vicious enough is just not what they want.”
That’s Rahm Emanuel speaking to author Naftali Bendavid in his new book “The Thumpin’: How Rahm Emanuel and the Democrats Learned to Be Ruthless and Ended the Republican Revolution.” And you know what? He’s right. You KNOW he’s right. For as long as I can remember, Democrats have been on the correct side of major ideas but were too nice to take on the Republican slime machine. John Kerry and Max Cleland ring a bell? So ruthless and cut throat are the Republicans sinse Newt’s little coup in ‘94 that they smeared one of their own – Sen. John McCain.
I witnessed this firsthand.
So what did Emanuel do about the Dems refusal to get their hands dirty? As chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign he assembled a staff of “allies who were not afraid to draw blood, who had no problem launching a harsh attack against a Republican and smiling at him in the Capitol the next day.”
When Republicans found out Emanuel had been tapped for the DCCC post, former speaker Tom Delay said, “now they’re getting serious.”
So where did the newfound bloodlust lead the Democrats? Victory in 2006. But the whiney netroots were not to pleased. “Barely had the polls closed,” Bendavid writes, “when liberals began asserting that Emanuel had little to do with the victory, that he had even prevented the Democrats from winning more seats. Emanuel had picked the wrong type of candidates, they said, focusing on inoffensive centrists rather than forthright anti-war populists who had more grassroots support.”
This mentality is as flawed as anything that’s ever come from them. To win in 2006, Democrats had to draw support from not only other Democrats, but from independents and a few Republicans. A centrist Democrat will usually win in a blue district. A “forthright anti-war populist” Democrat (read: “progressive.” ) will not usually win in a red district. Anyone reading this think Rep. Dennis Kucinich could have notched a victory in Rep. Heath Shulers’s neck of the woods? Not hardly. And Bendavid is too nice himself here. The push by the netroots to discredit Emanuel’s progress began before the election. One netroots commenter actually said she would rather Democrats lose in the mid terms then have Emanuel get any credit for winning.
“The Thumpin’: How Rahm Emanuel and the Democrats Learned to Be Ruthless and Ended the Republican Revolution” is an incredibly interesting read, especially the parts that do cover Emanuel’s conflict with DNC chair and netroots darling Howard Dean over financing the congressional races. I highly suggest it for your summer reading.