Madfloridian's Journal - Trying to put into words what disturbs me about the choice of Rahm as Chief of Staff

First let me say I really don't mind if our President-Elect picks moderate Republicans for his cabinet in some cases. My family are mostly moderate Republicans. That would not bother me nearly so much as his pick of Rahm Emanuel.

It is hard to put into words because it is pretty obvious to me that this indicates more than just moving right again. Rahm's views on many things are not comforting. Chris Bowers has a post up today at Open Left. He is one of the few bloggers on our side saying much about it.

It indicates a type of politics I thought we might be leaving behind considering the calm and assuring demeanor of Barack Obama himself.

From Open Left:

What Rahm indicates about an Obama administration

I don't like Rahm Emanuel becoming Obama's chief of staff, but I also don't think it would have mattered if he chose someone else. If Obama wanted Rahm as Chief of Staff, but Rahm had declined or been denied the slot via outside pressure, then you can be sure Obama would have simply sought someone else who was virtually identical to Rahm in terms of demeanor, tactics, and ideology. The options were basically either Rahm or some variation on Rahm. In this case, I view him as simply the vehicle or the weapon, not the person driving or pulling the trigger.

Still, that Obama was looking for a Chief of Staff in Rahm's mold is disturbing. Over the last few years, I agree with Kagro X in that it appears that Rahm's defining governing characteristic has been to approach legislation almost entirely from the perspective of how it will play in an election. That is a big negative, both because we just suffered through too much of that during the Bush administration and because it is a erroneous way of viewing the relationship between legislation and elections. People don't vote for or against you because of how you voted in legislation in the abstract. Instead, people vote for or against you because of how the legislation you voted on affected their lives. As such, the key is to pass legislation that will make most people's lives better, not legislation that will look good in the abstract the moment it is passed. The Bush administration was constantly focused on passing legislation that looked good in the abstract the moment it was passed. However, no matter how good the legislation looked once it was passed, it ended up ruining people's lives, and so those people voted against Republicans later on.

It also doesn't help that Emanuel has a very right-wing view on how to win elections. He is vehemently opposed to progressive immigration reform, arguing both that Democratic candidates should ignore immigrants because they don't vote and that women congressional candidates performed poorly in the 2006 elections because they weren't right-wing enough on immigration.

That was one of the biggest concerns to me, that he was pushing and nagging the candidates he was coaching for the DCCC to "go right" on immigration. He did the same thing on Iraq. He told them not to talk about the war on the campaign trail.

Immigrants in our country have been treated in despicable ways since the Bush administration decided to use them as a wedge issue.

Obama, Howard Dean speak up against attacks on immigrants...Rahm says "move right to win"

Obama's words:

In a speech to the crowd, Obama sharpened his rhetoric against some of the most vocal voices against immigrant workers and migrant worker programs.

“A certain segment has basically been feeding a kind of xenophobia. There’s a reason why hate crimes against Hispanic people doubled last year,” Obama said. “If you have people like Lou Dobbs and Rush Limbaugh ginning things up, it’s not surprising that would happen."

Beautiful reassuring words, well-spoken.

From Howard Dean:

At a rally, Dean garnered the loudest applause when he said Republicans would make immigration a pivotal issue during upcoming elections, as they did gay marriage and affirmative action in previous elections.

"Do you know who the scapegoats are going to be? Immigrants," he said. "In Colorado, the chairman of the Republican Party endorsed Tom Tancredo (search) for re-election. That is morally reprehensible. The governor of California, a supposed moderate Republican, invited the Minutemen to visit California. We do not need vigilante justice."

Great words.

Now for Rahm's words:

Two weeks ago he sent a DCCC-connected candidate training a video of himself haranguing congressional candidates to “move right” on immigration or risk defeat at the hands of Republicans. This is similar to the terrible advice he shoved down candidates’ throats last year, although then he was demanding they move to the right on Iraq, dooming the candidacies of Lois Murphy, Francine Busby, Ken Lucas, Tammy Duckworth, Diane Farrell and several others who went along with his demands. Yesterday Markos asked a blaring question at DailyKos: Is Rahm racist, or merely scared?. While walking the picket line at the WGA strike at Fox today Jane and I came up with the idea of inviting Emanuel over to FDL to ask him why he thinks adopting Tom Tancredo’s immigration ideas is a good idea and why he’s unleashed Heath Shuler to do just that.

Moving right is the supposedly time-honored tactic for Democrats. Now as a result we have too many victims. The rights of women have been harmed, the gay community is being demeaned, immigrants are being scapegoated still. All because of "moving right to win."

Here is even more of Rahm's advice on immigration and his view that more women are not elected because they are too soft on the subject.

This isn't the first time Emanuel has publicly encouraged Democrats to take right-wing stances on immigration. Basically, he has told everyone willing to listen that this is his advice. As I have written before, he has told multiple people I know that this is the reason he thinks so many Democratic women lost close races in 2006. As Howie Klein recently reported, he also appears to have disgusted several Democratic candidates for House in 2008 by recently telling them all at the training to do the same thing this year.

What is Emanuel's problem here? Not only is it disgusting and immoral to scapegoat a national minority in order to gain power for yourself, not only do foreign-born Americans represent over 11% of the national population, but doesn't it occur to him that angering the largest growth demographics in American politics is just a stupid thing for the party to do long-term? Sure, all of 6% of the population considers immigration to be the top issue facing America in recent open-ended questions, but only are those voters almost certainly very unlikely to ever vote for Democrats anyway, but they don't represent massive growth demographics in America. Latinos and Asians represent 10% of the national voting population, and they are growing fast. Not to mention that Latinos represented the largest, pro-Democratic swing of any demographic group in 2006.
Open Left, Rahm on immigration.

I haven't even gone in to the role that Rahm played in Carville's coup to oust Dean right after a successful election in 2006. It needs to be mentioned.

Carville tells more about who was involved in his attacks on Dean

Flush with victory after the election, Rahm’s allies, led by Carville, try to mount a coup at the DNC by publicly attacking Dean and suggesting he be replaced by Harold Ford, a Tennessee moderate who just lost a Senate race. “You can’t go into 2008 having a party chairman that is completely disconnected from the congressional leadership and the campaign committees,” Carville tells me, further pounding the wedge that divides the Deaniacs and the Clintonites. When I ask if Rahm agrees, Carville says, “It’s not any secret that Rahm has expressed disdain for Dean and not very secret that Rahm and I are close. It doesn’t take a lot of dot-connecting here.”

What about the Clintons, who, given Hillary’s presidential ambitions, have more cause for concern about who runs the DNC in 2008? “Let’s just say nobody has called me telling me this is a bad idea. Sometimes silence is eloquence.” Not only did Carville’s coup fail but it arguably strengthened Dean, who, speaking before his state-party allies, mocked the attempt as a desperate attack from the “old Democratic Party.” Cutting his losses, Rahm quickly leaked word to the press that he and Dean had negotiated a truce.

We know now why only Chris Matthews has even mentioned that Dean might deserve a little credit. He probably did it because his son was with Dean's campaign and there was a sign in his yard at one time for Dean.

We now know which way the party will be moving. Choosing Rahm has made that clear.

Hubby and I have been on a very wild enthusiastic ride as Deaniacs since way early on in 2003. He has done a good job. He has traveled for 4 years building and mostly staying in the background. The only defense he got when attacked was from a few of us at various forums.

I had to say what I thought about the choice of Rahm Emanuel. I like that Chris Bowers spoke out this, and I liked what Digby said earlier. She said it is still our job to hold feet to the fire.

I was feeling a kind of warm comfortable glow about the election until Rahm was picked. It changed the atmosphere around Obama greatly.