"Change": Obama taps Clinton staffer for Chief of Staff

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20081105/D9492S2O0.html

:tu Staying true to his word to bring change to D.C. by selecting a Clinton staffer for his chief of staff on Day 1.

[MannyIsGod]

I missed the place where he campaigned on picking a certain person as chief of staff. However, am I surprised you've started a thread like this where you omit any mention of Republicans being considered for cabinet positions? No. Why? Because you're going to post whatever info you need to make your (bogus) point no matter the context.

[Mr. Peabody]

Not only that, but if he's really serious about "change," doesn't having a chief of staff defeat that goal? After all, every other president has had a chief of staff.

This isn't change.

[PM5K]

LOL Mr. Peabody.....

Reminds me of that bizzaro Seinfeld episode....

Things were pretty good when Clinton was in office, so if BHO wants to bring some of those guys in, that's ok with me...

[boutons_]

Aggie's reaching, and come up his hands full of shit.

A guy can't even select a CoS and Aggie's accusing him of not "changing". :lol

[Warlord23]

Let me get this straight ... he picks a staffer from the one competent presidency this country has seen in the last 40 years, and you guys start bitching? What should he do, appoint someone from the freaking Bush administration? How about one of Reagan's economic policy advisors?

[Anti.Hero]

He should pick up Newt.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

I missed the place where he campaigned on picking a certain person as chief of staff. However, am I surprised you've started a thread like this where you omit any mention of Republicans being considered for cabinet positions? No. Why? Because you're going to post whatever info you need to make your (bogus) point no matter the context.

When he names a Republican to his staff, I'll give him some props for it. It's not about posting whatever I want. He ran on change, and his first personnel move is appointing a Clinton guy as his chief of staff. I thought D.C. needed a fresh start or some shit.

Or am I supposed to follow along with the bullshit media and pretend like Obama never said anything like that when he goes back on his word? Gimme a break Manny.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

Aggie's reaching, and come up his hands full of shit.

A guy can't even select a CoS and Aggie's accusing him of not "changing". :lol

He said he wanted change. Newsflash for your bigoted ass - every time Obama breaks one of his campaign promises or themes, he's going to get called out for it. And he deserves it.

[MannyIsGod]

No, but the fact that you think this is somehow going back on his word is severely out of whack.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

No, but the fact that you think this is somehow going back on his word is severely out of whack.

What happened to 'change we could believe in'? Or was that just another soundbite?

[sook]

http://andrewkok.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/epic-fail-guy-election.gif

[MannyIsGod]

Yeah, its not even 1.20.09 yet and you're already saying Obama is failing on his campaign promises. Besides, who gets to decide what type of change we find acceptable? You who didn't vote for him or me who did?

[MannyIsGod]

Obama Broken Campaign Promise #1 - Appoint a CoS AHF approves of.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

Do you know anything about him Manny? The Great Uniter just made his first hire a spiteful partisan lib. Good move, Obama :tu

[MannyIsGod]

Seriously AHF, keep posting this stupidity. Rebuttals for this type of bullshit are easy as hell.

So who should he have choosen for CoS?

[FromWayDowntown]

I'm pretty sure Obama didn't make a promise to hire only people who've got no political experience. I'm also pretty sure that if Obama had made a Saint his choice for WH Chief of Staff, those who voted for McCain would largely lambaste him for that choice.

[MannyIsGod]

Do you know anything about him Manny? The Great Uniter just made his first hire a spiteful partisan lib. Good move, Obama :tu

I'm utterly shocked he picked a Democrat. Shocked and appalled! He promised me change so he should appoint a Republican to one of the most important positions in his administration!

Shocked and appalled!!!

[florige]

Damn can the man get sworn in at least??:lol

[FromWayDowntown]

I'm utterly shocked he picked a Democrat. Shocked and appalled! He promised me change so he should appoint a Republican to one of the most important positions in his administration!

Shocked and appalled!!!

Actually, I think he should have just asked McCain who would have been on McCain's cabinet and staff and then just filled his Administration with those people -- talk about change!!!!

[MannyIsGod]

Seriously! The fucking day after the election and we're actually seeing someone claim he's broken a campaign promise? The fucking change he was referring to is going to come when Emanuel helps ram through legislation not with the selection of Emanuel.

[Mr. Peabody]

I'm shocked that he picked a biped for Chief of Staff. Every other Chief of Staff has used two legs for locomotion. Real "change" would have been a quadruped.

[Findog]

:lmao at this thread. It's a good thing that conservatards have resumed their role as the opposition.

[Spurminator]

Accepting McCain's concession was such typical Washington politics. What a fraud. A true agent of change would have conceded to the candidate with FEWER electoral votes.

[Mr. Peabody]

Accepting McCain's concession was such typical Washington politics. What a fraud. A true agent of change would have conceded to the candidate with FEWER electoral votes.

That's not really change. We just had a president who got the position despite having fewer votes than his opponent.

[ploto]

A "Muslim" picked a Jew- isn't that enough change for you?

[Purple & Gold]

:lmao :lmao @ the repub meltdown

[florige]

:lmao :lmao @ the repub meltdown


Actually it hasn't been too bad. (from what I've seen at least, lol)
The only REAL meltdown I saw was last night when Crookshanks went ballistic in the live update thread. But other than that.....:lol

[Purple & Gold]

Actually it hasn't been too bad. (from what I've seen at least, lol)
The only REAL meltdown I saw was last night Crookshanks went ballistic in the live update thread. But other than that.....:lol

Ohhhh just wait it's only the beginning. It's gonna get much worse :rollin

[spurster]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/06/us/politics/06obama.html

Several Early Choices for New Administration Have Clinton Pedigree

Article Tools Sponsored By
By PETER BAKER
Published: November 5, 2008

Barack Obama argued for months that victory for his opponent would be akin to a third term for President Bush. But as he embarks on his own presidency, Mr. Obama faces the challenge of building an administration that does not look like a third term for former President Bill Clinton.

Introducing his first appointments as president-elect, Mr. Obama reached deep into the Clinton fold on Wednesday, naming John D. Podesta, a former White House chief of staff, to lead his transition team. He has asked another former Clinton aide, Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, to be his own chief of staff and is said to be choosing between two other Clinton veterans for national security adviser.

...

"They're torn," a prominent Democrat close to the campaign said of Mr. Obama's advisers. "There's half of them that think, `We're in the midst of a huge economic crisis; let's get the most experienced people out there.' The other half think, `Hey, we're the change candidate.'"

...

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

:lmao :lmao @ the repub meltdown

Yeah, we should be happy about Rahm Emanuel being on his staff. I mean given this country's housing/finance mess I think it's a great move having a guy on your staff that sat on Fannie Mae's Board of Directors at the time all that shit was going down :tu

[clambake]

Yeah, we should be happy about Rahm Emanuel being on his staff. I mean given this country's housing/finance mess I think it's a great move having a guy on your staff that sat on Fannie Mae's Board of Directors at the time all that shit was going down :tu

did you see that mccain campaign?

there are no competent republicans.

and why would obama fuck himself with your shit?

[FromWayDowntown]

It was curious to watch Andy Card on Fox News this morning talking about Obama's obligation to somehow satisfy McCain voters with his cabinet choices. I'm not sure that W felt any obligation to satisfy Gore voters (who actually constituted the voting majority) in putting together a cabinet in 2000.

While I suspect that Obama's selections will be at least somewhat non-partisan or centrist, I don't know that a platform of "change" compels him to kowtow to Republican desires.

[clambake]

yeah, i can't wait to hire guys that called me a terrorist.

[RandomGuy]

When he names a Republican to his staff, I'll give him some props for it. It's not about posting whatever I want. He ran on change, and his first personnel move is appointing a Clinton guy as his chief of staff. I thought D.C. needed a fresh start or some shit.

Or am I supposed to follow along with the bullshit media and pretend like Obama never said anything like that when he goes back on his word? Gimme a break Manny.


Don't pretend you will ever be fair to a Democratic president. The rest of us know better, and you pretending otherwise simply is an insult to our intelligence.

[ElNono]

What? The whole cabinet is not going to be Republican?
OMG!!!!!! I've been lied to!!!!!
:rolleyes

[Tully365]

Arguing with AHF is a complete waste of time and energy. There's no human on the face of the earth that Obama could pick that would satisfy him. Obama could name McCain to his cabinet, and AHF would still find something to criticize. Has AHF ever posted a single diplomatic, complimentary, kind, or non-partisan word in this forum? Ever?

[ploto]

But as he embarks on his own presidency, Mr. Obama faces the challenge of building an administration that does not look like a third term for former President Bill Clinton.

Doesn't look so bad to most people.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

Arguing with AHF is a complete waste of time and energy. There's no human on the face of the earth that Obama could pick that would satisfy him. Obama could name McCain to his cabinet, and AHF would still find something to criticize. Has AHF ever posted a single diplomatic, complimentary, kind, or non-partisan word in this forum? Ever?

Actually there are rumblings he will keep on Gates as SecDef, that would please me very much.

I'd love to give Obama a chance, but tapping former Fannie Mae execs to your staff isn't exactly a good start.

And yeah, I know Bush had a couple of Goldman guys on his staff, that was a bullshit move too.

Obama campaigned on a platform of change but he seems hellbent on filling up his executive team with a bunch of D.C. insiders. It's comical that you libtards are sucking his dick for that, but it's what I expected from you.

[clambake]

Obama campaigned on a platform of change but he seems hellbent on filling up his executive team with a bunch of D.C. insiders. It's comical that you libtards are sucking his dick for that, but it's what I expected from you.

in the other thread, you called the current administration "suckage".

so you want obama to hire suckage?

[TheMadHatter]

I'm sorry but have you seen the steaming pile of dogshit that is the Republican Party lately? I wouldn't want any of those brain-dead nitwits in my Cabinet either.

Chief Of Staff is not a typically bipartisan position anyways, I don't know why anyone is even making an issue of this.

This must be how the Republicans are going to act in the next 4 years. Whining, bitching, moaning, complaining, and doing everything they can to stifle and impede progress. Keep it up, you may manage to make your party an even smaller minority.

[Tully365]

It's comical that you libtards are sucking his dick for that, but it's what I expected from you.

This from the guy whose favorite tag line is: Stay classy :tu

thanks for showing the way, Mr Classy.

[ChumpDumper]

Actually there are rumblings he will keep on Gates as SecDef, that would please me very much.

I'd love to give Obama a chance, but tapping former Fannie Mae execs to your staff isn't exactly a good start.

And yeah, I know Bush had a couple of Goldman guys on his staff, that was a bullshit move too.

Obama campaigned on a platform of change but he seems hellbent on filling up his executive team with a bunch of D.C. insiders. It's comical that you libtards are sucking his dick for that, but it's what I expected from you.Well, who do you want for each cabinet position?

[Bigzax]

Let me get this straight ... he picks a staffer from the one competent presidency this country has seen in the last 40 years, and you guys start bitching? What should he do, appoint someone from the freaking Bush administration? How about one of Reagan's economic policy advisors?



:lmao

[~~~~~~]

Hey WTF.
http://www.examiner.com/x-536-Civil-Liberties-Examiner~y2008m11d6-Obamas-chief-of-staff-choice-favors-compulsory-universal-service


Obama's chief of staff choice favors compulsory universal service
November 6, 10:03 AM
by J.D. Tuccille, Civil Liberties Examiner
Rep. Rahm Emanuel wants to force people 18 to 25 to labor for the government. Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, President-Elect Barack Obama's choice for chief of staff in his incoming administration, is co-author of a book, The Plan: Big Ideas for America, that calls for, among other things, compulsory service for all Americans ages 18 to 25. The following excerpt is from pages 61-62 of the 2006 book:


It's time for a real Patriot Act that brings out the patriot in all of us. We propose universal civilian service for every young American. Under this plan, All Americans between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five will be asked to serve their country by going through three months of basic training, civil defense preparation and community service. ...

Here's how it would work. Young people will know that between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, the nation will enlist them for three months of civilian service. They'll be asked to report for three months of basic civil defense training in their state or community, where they will learn what to do in the event of biochemical, nuclear or conventional attack; how to assist others in an evacuation; how to respond when a levee breaks or we're hit by a natural disaster. These young people will be available to address their communities' most pressing needs.

Emanuel and co-author Bruce Reed insist "this is not a draft," but go on to write of young men and women, "the nation will enlist them for three months of civilian service." They also warn, "[s]ome Republicans will squeal about individual freedom," ruling out any likelihood that they would let people opt out of universal citizen service.

As chief of staff, Emanuel will not be in a position to directly introduce public policy, but his enthusiasm for compulsory service, combined with Barack Obama's own plan to require high school students to perform 50 hours of government-approved service, suggest an unfortunate direction for the new administration.

Isn't Emanuel a Mossad extremist?

[TheMadHatter]

Obama has stated that he would never make Civil Service mandatory. What he said was he would encourage more young Americans to serve by giving them free tuition for college.

[ChumpDumper]

Isn't Emanuel a Mossad extremist?Wouldn't that be a positive for you internets tough guys?

[MannyIsGod]

Man, I can't believe Obama selected this guy. His mindset is so partisan. :rolleyes


"I don't think the country is yearning for an ideological answer. If anything it's the opposite. They want real solutions to real problems. And if we do an ideological test, we will fail. Our challenge is to work to solve the actual problems that the country is facing, not work to satisfy any constituency or ideological wing of the party."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122611134918910647.html

[MannyIsGod]

And more:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15424.html


Ken Duberstein, the former chief of staff to President Ronald Reagan, and Leon Panetta, the former California congressman who held the post in the Clinton White House, said Emanuel’s appointment suggested that Obama was serious about getting results from his administration.

“Rahm is exceptionally well-qualified for that job,” Duberstein said, lauding Obama for choosing a chief of staff so early in the transition process. “It sends a message here and abroad that this president-elect is all about governing and not campaigning.”

Gee, where I have seen this asserted before?


Duberstein even suggested Emanuel’s toughest task might be restraining fellow Democrats, rather than fighting with Republicans.

“His challenge will be, with the president, reaching out and building coalitions on the Hill, saying no to some of the president-elect’s most important constituencies,” Duberstein said. “As partisan as Rahm may have been on the Hill, he’s all about governing.”

[~~~~~~]

Obama has stated that he would never make Civil Service mandatory. What he said was he would encourage more young Americans to serve by giving them free tuition for college.I don't think it's free. $4K tax credit , in exchange for 100 hours community service (http://change.gov/americaserves/). There's already a 1098-t (http://www.irs.gov/instructions/i1098et/ar02.html) tax write off for college tuition. There's also a Hope
Credit (http://www.nasfaa.org/AnnualPubs/TaxBenefitsGuide.html#tuitiondeduction) for those pursuing post-undergrad education or continued education programs. I guess I'm wondering if Obama's $4K tax credit is on top of the already existing 1098-t or if it's a revision of 1098-t.


Man, I can't believe Obama selected this guy. His mindset is so partisan. :rolleyes

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122611134918910647.html
R. Emanuel seems to have the personality of a whack job.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/8091986/the_enforcer/print
The Enforcer
Rep. Rahm Emanuel is leading the Democratic charge to retake the House next year. Will his old-school combativeness rub off on his more timid colleagues?
Joshua Green
Posted Oct 20, 2005 12:00 AM

The Republicans are on the ropes. There's House Majority Leader Tom DeLay: indicted for conspiracy and money laundering. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist: under investigation for insider trading. The White House's chief procurement officer: arrested on corruption charges. The head of FEMA: forced to resign in disgrace. Even President Bush himself: approval ratings at an all-time low. The question is, will the Democrats be able to take advantage of the mess the GOP has made?

The answer depends, in many ways, on Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Chicago.

For years, Emanuel was the political brains of Bill Clinton's White House. Intense to the point of ferocity, he was known for taking on the most daunting tasks — the ones no one else wanted — and pulling off the seemingly impossible, from banning assault weapons to beating back the Republican-led impeachment. "Clinton loved Rahm," recalls one staffer, "because he knew that if he asked Rahm to do something, he would move Heaven and Earth — not necessarily in that order — to get it done."

Now, as head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), Emanuel has taken on his biggest challenge yet: to win back the House of Representatives after more than a decade of Republican control. To pull it off, the two-term congressman will have to overcome odds far greater than those the GOP faced when Newt Gingrich engineered his historic takeover in 1994. Back then, according to a study by the National Committee for an Effective Congress, 117 seats were "marginal" — that is, close enough to be considered competitive. Last year, thanks in large part to Republican-friendly redistricting, the number of close races shrank to only thirty-four.

Over lunch near his office in Chicago, Emanuel previews his strategy to win the fifteen seats needed to retake the House. Unlike others in the Democratic leadership who seem reluctant to criticize the president and are fearful of their own party's grass roots, Emanuel knows it will take an aggressive, all-fronts effort to prevail in next year's midterm elections. Democrats, he says, will have to raise record amounts of campaign cash, challenge the Republicans in dozens of districts, offer concrete alternatives to Bush's failed policies — and above all, hammer home a clear and consistent message.

"We're the party of change," Emanuel tells me. "We're the party of a new direction — a break from rampant cronyism and the status quo. Period."

If that message has a familiar ring, it may be because Republicans used essentially the same formula to seize control of the House a decade ago. Indeed, given his hard-charging reputation, Emanuel often elicits comparisons to the man who led the GOP to victory in 1994. "Rahm is the Democrats' Newt Gingrich," says Bruce Reed, who served with Emanuel in the Clinton White House. "He understands how much ideas matter, he always knows his message, he takes no prisoners and he only plays to win."

Other Clinton veterans are even more pointed about Emanuel's assets. "He's got this big old pair of brass balls, and you can just hear 'em clanking when he walks down the halls of Congress," says Paul Begala, who served with Emanuel on Clinton's staff. "The Democratic Party is full of Rhodes scholars — Rahm is a road warrior. He's just what the Democrats need to fight back."

Friends and enemies agree that the key to Emanuel's success is his legendary intensity. There's the story about the time he sent a rotting fish to a pollster who had angered him. There's the story about how his right middle finger was blown off by a Syrian tank when he was in the Israeli army. And there's the story of how, the night after Clinton was elected, Emanuel was so angry at the president's enemies that he stood up at a celebratory dinner with colleagues from the campaign, grabbed a steak knife and began rattling off a list of betrayers, shouting "Dead! . . . Dead! . . . Dead!" and plunging the knife into the table after every name. "When he was done, the table looked like a lunar landscape," one campaign veteran recalls. "It was like something out of The Godfather. But that's Rahm for you."

Of the three stories, only the second is a myth — Emanuel lost the finger to a meat slicer as a teenager and never served in the Israeli army. But it's a measure of his considerable reputation as the enforcer in Clinton's White House that so many people believe it to be true. You don't earn the nickname "Rahmbo" being timid.

In person, Emanuel projects the hyperactivity of an attack dog straining at the leash. Although he swims and works out several mornings each week before most of his colleagues are out of bed, the exercise evidently does little to drain his energy — he is constantly fidgeting, gesturing, spinning, always on the move. He's notorious for driving those around him mercilessly: When he joined Clinton's campaign team, he reportedly introduced himself by standing on a table and yelling at the staff for forty-five minutes. "We joke that someone should open a special trauma ward in Washington for people who've worked for Rahm," says Jose Cerda, a veteran staffer. Emanuel, who was reared in the rough-and-tumble world of Chicago politics, makes no apologies for his style. "If I got worried about that, I'd sit beneath my desk all day," he says. "I don't."

His combativeness was practically foreordained. The second of three sons born to a pediatrician father and a civil-rights-activist mother, Rahm was raised in a middle-class family that stressed competitiveness and achievement. His older brother, Ezekiel, is a leading medical ethicist. His younger brother, Ari, is a Hollywood talent agent who served as the inspiration for Ari Gold, the fast-talking agent played by Jeremy Piven on HBO's hit series Entourage. (In a recent episode shot at a Lakers game, the lead actors sat in Ari Emanuel's $2,000 courtside seats.) "After about the sixth episode, I finally caught it," says Rahm, who himself was the model for the character Josh Lyman on The West Wing. "I called Ari the next day and said, 'Hey, I finally saw the show, and you know what? I like that guy better than I like you.'"

When Rahm was a boy, his mother forced him to take ballet lessons, and he threw himself into it with the same intensity he would later bring to politics, winning a scholarship to the Joffrey Ballet. Friends jokingly theorize that his toughness is actually an outgrowth of being a ballet dancer: With that sort of thing on your resume, you had better be ready to fight if you hope to survive in Chicago politics. "The guy had been a ballet dancer in college," says Bruce Reed, "yet grown men lived in mortal fear of what he might do to them if they couldn't get the answer he wanted."

Emanuel, who has clearly come in for his share of hazing, has a ready reply. As part of a "negotiation" with his mother, he tells me, he turned down the ballet scholarship but agreed to attend Sarah Lawrence College, which has a strong dance program. "It was a great liberal-arts school, and there were four women for every guy," Emanuel reasons. "I was eighteen, so I'm allowed to think like that."

Emanuel got his political education working as a fund-raiser for Mayor Richard Daley's re-election campaign in Chicago, where he learned how to twist arms and knock heads. Donors were used to giving $5,000 — but Daley needed more. "Rahm took it up a notch," Daley's brother William recalled several years ago. "He told many of them they easily had the ability to give twenty-five grand." When contributors didn't pony up, Emanuel would tell them he was embarrassed that they'd offered so little and hang up on them. The shocked donor would usually call back and sheepishly comply. In thirteen weeks, the thirty-year-old raised $7 million — an unprecedented sum at the time. His fund-raising skills eventually earned him a job in the Clinton campaign.

This year, Emanuel's fund-raising for congressional candidates has been no less impressive. Through September, the DCCC had raised a record-breaking $32 million, much of it slated to support the most vulnerable Democrats — those elected in Republican-leaning districts or looking to challenge Republican incumbents. Unlike past DCCC chairmen, who simply dispersed money without demanding anything in return, Emanuel approaches the job with the sensibility of a Mob bookie. He forces candidates in the most competitive races who receive money to sign what he calls a "Memo of Understanding," delineating exactly how many fund-raising phone calls and appearances they will make in exchange for the committee's support. To seal the pact, Emanuel then signs the memo himself. "I want to make sure everybody is doing everything they're supposed to be doing," he says.

Every Thursday at the crack of dawn, Emanuel summons staffers to DCCC headquarters to go through the day's newspapers over bagels and coffee. Then, at 8 a.m., he runs a meeting with the nine members of Congress who make up his strategy and recruitment team. The group painstakingly pores over every congressional race in the country to make sure that Emanuel's plan is on track.

Emanuel's rapid rise to DCCC chairman is unusual for a second-term congressman, and it signals the respect that Democrats have for the political skills he displayed in the Clinton White House. Like Gingrich in the early 1990s, Emanuel is trying to create a national wave of anti-Washington sentiment rooted in the mounting instances of corruption and sleaze that have piled up in the Republican-led Congress. "People aren't happy with Washington!" he shouts, echoing the attitude that Gingrich capitalized on. "Look, we should be the party outside of Washington coming to goddamn kick ass out there!"

When I mention that he sounds like Gingrich in '94, however, Emanuel glowers. He doesn't grab the steak knife sitting next to him, but he looks like he wants to. "I admire Gingrich's energy, his ideas," he allows. "When you're in the opposition, your ability to shape and define is very limited. You have to take advantage of your opponent's mistakes. He got lucky — we made our mistakes in the Clinton White House, and he was there to take advantage of it. That's exactly what we're trying to do in 2006."

In his own voting record, Emanuel is no Gingrich-style radical. A certified member of the Beltway establishment, and a political centrist to boot, he favors incremental, family-friendly policies in the Clinton mode: tax breaks to help the middle class pay for college, incentives to encourage workers to save for retirement, re-importing drugs to lower prescription costs. He has sharply criticized the president's handling of the war in Iraq, but he doesn't agree with those who say we should pull out immediately, favoring a more gradual withdrawal based on "benchmarks" for training Iraqi troops.

Yet Emanuel has received generally positive reviews from the increasingly noisy — and powerful — grass roots of the Democratic Party. As leader of the DCCC, he has struck a fragile truce with the heavily liberal blogosphere and organizations such as MoveOn.org. Emanuel has hosted four "blog calls" with the pre-eminent liberal bloggers, going over congressional races and sharing DCCC strategy in an effort to bring the activist community into the fold. In July, the partnership yielded promising results when Paul Hackett, an Iraq War veteran running as a Democrat, nearly won a special election for an Ohio congressional seat in Cincinnati, the nation's most conservative major metropolitan area. "The blogs were fabulous — absolutely fabulous — for Hackett," Emanuel says. "In the last twelve days of the race they collected about $250,000."

For their part, bloggers and grass-roots activists support Emanuel in no small part because they hope his combativeness will rub off on his more timid colleagues. "He understands the importance of having a good relationship with Net roots," says Markos Moulitsas, who runs the influential blog Daily Kos. "If nothing else, he knows that we exist and it's not as confrontational a relationship as we had with past DCCC regimes." Nor is Moulitsas put off by Emanuel's centrist politics. "We don't give a shit," he says. "I think there's growing understanding that we can't sit and fixate on who's a moderate and who's a liberal when we're in the minority. We can worry about that when we're in the majority."

That's a view Emanuel wholeheartedly shares. "We get into this stupid argument every four years: centrists vs. leftists," he says. "That is not the argument today. It is change vs. status quo. In 1992, Bill Clinton was a change agent — he won. In 1994, Newt Gingrich was a change agent — he won. In 1996, Bill Clinton was a change agent to Dole and Gingrich — he won. In 1998, Democrats represented a change from the Republican drive for impeachment — they won. In 2000, George Bush was a credible change agent. In 2002, Democrats failed to convey change — and they lost. I want to be about change and reform to the Republican status quo."

As part of his strategy to win back the House, Emanuel has unleashed a high-octane campaign to recruit candidates to represent the Democrats next fall. He has already put forty-one House seats "in play" — forcing the Republicans to defend their majority district by district. On the same date in the last election cycle, the number of seats in play was three. "The way you crack the strategic imperative of not enough seats is by putting more seats in play with good candidates," Emanuel says. "And one way you do that is by broadening what people think of when they think of Democrats." Indeed, the lineup of candidates he has recruited to run next year sounds more like a GOP dream team: four military veterans, two FBI agents, a pastor, a sheriff and a former NFL quarterback, Heath Shuler. Once again, the common denominator is change. "You've got to have people that look and sound like they're not career politicians," he says.

Emanuel has made a point of letting veterans and their families know that they have a home in the Democratic Party. He erected a memorial to fallen soldiers outside his Capitol Hill office, and in June he led a bipartisan effort to read the names of those who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan on the floor of the House, ensuring that their service would be memorialized in the Congressional Record. "There are more vets running this cycle as Democrats than as Republicans," Emanuel notes. "This is going to be the first election where the war is going to come home. You'll get candidates coming back who are going to win."

Emanuel takes evident pleasure in blasting his opponents. The war, he says, exposed the administration's "incompetence," while the aftermath of Katrina revealed its corruption and cronyism. "Republicans can't govern!" he shouts. "The war, energy prices, the failure with Katrina — they have all changed the environment so that people are now unhappy with both the policy choices and the direction of the country."

But Emanuel knows Democrats will have to do more than make Republicans look bad if they hope to win back the House — they must present a positive, forward-looking agenda of their own, one that inspires hope and confidence among voters. After DeLay was indicted, Emanuel appeared on Meet the Press and laid out several components of the agenda he believes Democrats should run on in 2006: universal college education, universal health care for anyone who works, bringing down the national debt and cutting U.S. dependence on foreign oil in half within a decade. If expanded, such policies could form the basis of a Democratic version of the Contract With America, the weapon that Gingrich wielded to such devastating effect in his campaign to take control of Congress.

"One thing I agree with Newt about," says Emanuel, "is that he knew you had to look and feel like someone voters could see in that leadership role before they'd put you there. We have to generate that feeling. We have to make people believe that if they give us the goddamn keys to the car, we're not going to hit the tree. We've already got a party that knows how to do that, and we don't need that crowd anymore."

[From Issue 985 ? October 20, 2005]

[ChumpDumper]

I get a good feeling when board Republicans panic over things like this.

[Anti.Hero]

It's amazing how many people in government used to work for Fannie/Freddie :lmao

"Change"

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

Wouldn't that be a positive for you internets tough guys?

wouldn't it be a negative for the 13th Amendment?

And where is Dan, a couple of years ago him and boutons were crying on this board that Bush and Cheney were going to institute a draft for all young folks.

Now Obama and Emanuel are talking about compulsory service and they're worshiping the development.

[ChumpDumper]

From what I've read, it's far from compulsory.

[Wild Cobra]

And where is Dan, a couple of years ago him and boutons were crying on this board that Bush and Cheney were going to institute a draft for all young folks.

Now Obama and Emanuel are talking about compulsory service and they're worshiping the development.

And isn't it funny that the sponsor was a democrat, I think it was Shcumer, and all the co-sponsors were democrat. Not a single republican backed the draft bill!

I already saw a retort that "It wouldn't be mandatory." Then why is this in the earlier quote:


Emanuel and co-author Bruce Reed insist "this is not a draft," but go on to write of young men and women, "the nation will enlist them for three months of civilian service." They also warn, "[s]ome Republicans will squeal about individual freedom," ruling out any likelihood that they would let people opt out of universal citizen service.

And they correctly say the republicans will see it as an infringement of freedom. If not a draft, what is it when they acknowledge freedoms are an issue?