The Obama Administration is supposed to be all about team. It's supposed to be about broadening the coalition, delivering a consensus, and moving forward with honesty and transparency.
So why is it being run by a hack out of the Red-Blue Bush-Clinton wars?
Rahm Emanuel has already proven his incompetence to this President. If the Chief of Staff is in charge of vetting cabinet nominees, how did he not catch Daschle, Killifer or all the conflicts-of-interest they implied? Why is it that the stimulus is getting all the stimulus taken out of it? If it's all about team, why was Howard Dean kicked to the curb?
I understand that the President needs a ruthless pol in his White House who makes the trains run on time, a bad cop to his good cop. But if Rahm playing the President's game or Rahm's?
In most Administrations there is an outside game and an inside game. Most need compromise in order to breathe, and accomodation. But the biggest failures of Lincoln and Roosevelt came from their acceptance of this.
- Lincoln brought in a corrupt Pennsylvania Democrat as his first Secretary of War, and nearly lost the war in the process.
- Roosevelt listened to Republican bankers who told him to back off the New Deal, and nearly destroyed himself in the process.
Obama is falling behind the national mood and the reason is Rahm Emanuel. Emanuel's background was in Clinton's compromises, which were necessary at that time, swimming as he was against the Republican tide. But that tide is gone, it has in fact reversed,and when you lean against a collapsed wall you fall down, too.
Notice that I'm not arguing that Emanuel is corrupt or a dark force, as many in the Netroots are. I am arguing that his politics, and political style, are obsolete and not appropriate to the moment. His instincts are strengthening your enemies, and change always has enemies.
You can learn this yourself by asking a simple question. What is wrong with Howard Dean? Because what's wrong with Howard Dean, for Rahm, is that Dean showed Rahm up. Dean's strategy proved superior to Rahm's in race-after-race. Dean's Netroots would introduce a strong candidate, Rahm would parachute a more "establishment" candidate to replace them, and that candidate would either prove a loser or (worse) an embarrassment.
The best example is Florida's 16th CD. This was, until 2006, Mark Foley's district. The Netroots supported a man named David Lutrin who would have been a reliable supporter of your agenda. Emanuel, on the other hand, parachuted in Tim Mahoney (left). Desperate for Democrats to take the seat Lutrin withdrew, Mahoney won, but then (as you may recall) he was embroiled in his own sex scandal, and that seat is now held by a Republican.
At the DCCC Emanuel did this consistently. He did it because he did not believe that admittedly liberal candidates could beat a Republicans in historically Republican districts. In a time of rapid political change this is wrong. Dead wrong. And this assumption colors everything he has done in your White House.
Whenever change is coming the media is behind, and listening to it is not in your interest. Your campaign for President had much more in common with that of Howard Dean than with Hillary Clinton? So why continue to run a Clinton White House?
You will never be free to have your own Administration until you make it clear that the past is past and that you will be different. The best way to do that, right now, is to take the resignation of your chief of staff. And if he won't give it, fire him.
