[Peace-discuss] Awful Illinois Democrat

[C. G. Estabrook]

[During the 2002 Green party campaign for Congress in the 15th
CD, we had an Illinois Green publicly quit the party because
we had pointed out Israel's role in US Mideast policy and the
approaching war.  She went to work for Emmanuel's
congressional campaign because he was a (Clinton-style)
"liberal."  And he was.  --CGE] 

  December 9, 2005
  Only Millionaire-Fence Straddlers Need Apply
  Meet Rahm Emmanuel, the Democrats' New Gatekeeper
  By ANDREW COCKBURN
  WASHINGTON D.C.

At a recent meeting of House Republicans, members ruminating
on the disastrous state of their party reportedly murmured
with gloomy jocularity about the administration of "President
Hastert". A CounterPuncher familiar with the proceedings
reports "they were only half joking".

Yet, as they contemplate political ruin in next year's
election, these Republicans can take solace in the fact that,
if defeated, their replacements may not differ in any
meaningful way on important issues of the day. That at least
is the hope and dream of Democratic apparatchik Rahm Emmanuel
and the corporate toadies he represents. Ominously, Emmanuel,
a relict of the Clinton White House, heads the Democratic
National Campaign Committee.

As such, he decides which candidates for the House should get
money and other support from the national party. At a time
when any fool can see that the public hates the war more this
month than last, and will hate it even more next month and the
month after that, Emmanuel is doing his best to recruit
candidates, preferably rich ones, guaranteed to eschew vocal
opposition to the war.

Clear evidence for this proclivity is evident in the race to
succeed Henry Hyde, in Chicago's 6th District.

In the last election progressive candidate Christine Cegalis
actually got 44.2 per cent of the vote against the
sixteen-term Hyde, despite being outspent $700,000 to $160,000
in a conservative district with no elected Democrats at all.

Following this commendable showing, Cegalis figured that with
Hyde retiring and the Republicans melting down, she stood a
better than even chance of garnering the seat in 2006.

However it seems that in Emmanuel's opinion, Cegalis stinks.
Never mind that excellent record against the giant Hyde,
forget her well-crafted support network in the Chicago
district, Cegalis has not yet raised a million dollars and,
even more damningly, she is calling for troop withdrawal from
Iraq. So Emmanuel set out to recruit a more suitable
candidate. Initially, he approached two millionaires and urged
them, serially, to run against Cegalis in the primary.

They refused. Now he is pinning his hopes on a double amputee
women Iraq veteran, Tammy Duckworth

Duckworth, who is not from the district, has ignited hopes at
DCCC headquarters that she would campaign on a
"pro-business/centrist platform". Queried by a Chicago Sun
Times columnist for her opinion on the war, she replied,
"There's good and bad in everything".

That sort of equivocation must certainly have commended her to
Emmanuel, who greeted Congressman Murtha's fervent and
well-informed denunciation of the war with the words "Jack
Murtha went out and spoke for Jack Murtha" and has declared
that "At the right time we will have a position" on the war.

Cegalis' position is clear: "I support Jack Murtha", she tells
CounterPunch. "If Jack Murtha is calling for withdrawal, then
I go with that."

If Emmanuel and his like succeed in displacing Cegalis and
similar candidates, thereby undercutting any claim the
Democrats might have to either principle or votes, he will
only be concluding the work he began in the 1990s.

Cegalis reports that the economy has become the key issue in
DuPage County, roughly coterminous with the district. "DuPage
has lost jobs for the first time in fifty years." As
manufacturing jobs disappear to Mexico or China, voters can
mull the benefits of free trade and the Democrats who fostered it.

Most clear-minded observers would agree that among the mortal
body blows that have brought the Democrats to their present
ebb, the passage of NAFTA in 1993, with consequent
evisceration of the American industrial economy, must count as
among the most lethal.

Key to that passage was Emmanuel, who directed the Clinton
White House operation to get the treaty passed by any means
necessary.

The inevitable consequences of misery and want inflicted on
Americans and Mexicans alike did not of course hinder his
career, which took him, following his departure from the White
House in 1998, to a well upholstered post in a Chicago banking
firm before he won election to Dan Rostenkowski's old Chicago
seat.

Now, with the Democrats presented by their opponents with
their best chance in years, Emmanuel is ready to ensure that,
come what may, nothing will really change, except for the worse.

Andrew Cockburn is the co-author, with Patrick Cockburn, of
Out of the Ashes: the Resurrection of Saddam Hussein.