And immigration was one of the topics that he pushed hard with the DCCC's chosen candidates. He left no doubt that they were not to discuss Iraq on the campaign trail, and they were to "go right" on immigration in order to win. He told them they would risk defeat if they fought the Republicans too hard on this issue.
He's probably right, it IS one of the most effective issues the GOP has used. Of course, we could have turned the issue back on them...but that is not what was done.
Here are Rahm Emanuel's words on there not being enough votes for immigration reform.
From today's Washington Post:
Emanuel Says Immigration Reform Bill Lacks Votes to PassJust hours before President Obama hosted lawmakers for a discussion on immigration at the White House, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel conceded that Obama and his allies on Capitol Hill do not have the votes to pass a comprehensive reform bill.
"If the votes were there, you wouldn't need to have the meeting. You could go to a roll call," Emanuel told reporters during an hour-long breakfast.
About 20 senators and House members met with Obama at the White House this afternoon for the discussion in the State Dining Room. Aides to the president said the meeting was intended to "launch a policy conversation by having an honest discussion about the issues and identifying areas of agreement and areas where we still have work to do."
..."It's not impossible to do it this year," he said. "Could you get it in this year? Yes. I think the more important thing is to get it started this year."
Responding to a question about the political implications for Democrats of delay, Emanuel said, "It's better that it happens politically. It's also better that we continue to focus on improving the economy."
The candidates that were picked to run by the DCCC were very controlled about how to handle the issues. They were subjected to Rahm's view of the immigration issue, that the Democrats could not win unless they
turned to the right.From 2008
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.
About the same time there were comments from Daily Kos.
It's got to be one or the other, because Rahm Emanuel is behind efforts to build Democratic support for the Shuler/Tancredo "enforcement-only" bill currently winding its way through the House. Think about it -- our House leadership is strong-arming Democrats into backing a bill which is the central agenda of the biggest racist xenophobe Tom Tancredo.
More from Markos at
Daily Kos..."So we won, didn't we? Not according to Rahm and the either bigoted or scared contingent in the House that is ready to -- once again and demonstrably so -- be on the wrong side of the American public on this issue.
Americans don't want hate-based anti-immigration rhetoric and action, they want comprehensive immigration reform that secures our borders and provides a path to citizenship for the millions of undocumented immigrants in this country.
Here is more about how the candidates were led to decisions about what stands to take on issues like this.
From
Open Left last yearI 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.
Here are Obama's words on immigrants and the problems. They are refreshing to read. I wish it could be that way. But then he picked those who surrounded him.
More than 800 donors packed into a Westin Diplomat Hotel ballroom Thursday night to pad Barack Obama’s war chest by another $500,000, according to this pool report of the evening.
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."
Obama attacks Dobbs and LimbaughRahm was right about immigration being a big issue.
He was right about how hard it would be to outdo the right wing rhetoric on that subject. He is probably right that it will take time to change it.
However this same philosophy of "go right" to win is being used in the areas of topics that are strong on the more extreme religious right.....the women's choice and rights of gays.
If you only run people who support the other party on these topics, then you most surely, most certainly, will not ever have the votes to really change things.
