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.
More of my thoughts on what Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff says about an Obama administration in the extended entry. |
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, not 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 (see here for more on this). He is afraid of the damage Democrats can take even from the stupidest of right-wing smears, as seen by his organizing of endangered House Democrats to vote against their party on substantively meaningless motions to recommit for fear that such motions can be used in attack ads. He deplores using aggressive tactics against obstructionist Republicans, for fear that such aggression will hurt Democrats among voters. He despises the fifty-state strategy, and grassroots activism in general. He favors wealthy, conservative candidates, and helped elect a more right-wing group of freshman than it appears Van Hollen did even though more blue districts were available in 2006.
In short, Rahm Emanuel's views on how to win elections are the antithesis of those most commonly found in the progressive grassroots. No public aggression toward Republicans, rolling over to right-wing smear jobs, favoring wealth, conservative Democrats, opposing broad, grassroots activism, and even scapegoating minority groups like immigrants instead of firing up the base. It is bad enough to have someone who governs with one eye always focused on electoral implications, but when that person views elections in a way that is diametrically opposed to everything I, and many other in the netroots, have fought for in the Democratic Party this past decade, I end up with a more pessimistic view of the Obama administration than I had a couple days ago.
Now even with all of this said, Rahm himself isn't the problem. It is more worrying that Obama was looking for someone like Rahm as his Chief of Staff. If we can expect an Obama administration to display the same characteristics I described above, this could be a frustrating--but still of course improved--four years.
Still, there is one big positive: at least Rahm won't become Speaker now. My bet is that this clears the path for George Miller once Nancy Pelosi retires.
Note: I don't think this same logic applies to Cabinet members, since they will have considerably greater autonomy than the Chief of Staff. We need to opposed right-wing Cabinet choices vehemently. |
