Article on Rahm Emanuel that made me feel a little better.

[girl gone mad]

I don't like that he's a DLCer, corporatist, center-right, etc.

However, he is a good strategist. He understood that we needed to run on a platform of change back in 2005. He's also very energetic and hard working. Hopefully he will primarily be enforcing Obama's policy decisions, not influencing them.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/8091986/the_enforcer/

The Enforcer
Rep. Rahm Emanuel is leading the Democratic charge to retake the House next year. Will his old-school combativeness rub off on his more timid colleagues?

The Republicans are on the ropes. There's House Majority Leader Tom DeLay: indicted for conspiracy and money laundering. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist: under investigation for insider trading. The White House's chief procurement officer: arrested on corruption charges. The head of FEMA: forced to resign in disgrace. Even President Bush himself: approval ratings at an all-time low. The question is, will the Democrats be able to take advantage of the mess the GOP has made?

The answer depends, in many ways, on Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Chicago.

For years, Emanuel was the political brains of Bill Clinton's White House. Intense to the point of ferocity, he was known for taking on the most daunting tasks -- the ones no one else wanted -- and pulling off the seemingly impossible, from banning assault weapons to beating back the Republican-led impeachment. "Clinton loved Rahm," recalls one staffer, "because he knew that if he asked Rahm to do something, he would move Heaven and Earth -- not necessarily in that order -- to get it done."

Now, as head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), Emanuel has taken on his biggest challenge yet: to win back the House of Representatives after more than a decade of Republican control. To pull it off, the two-term congressman will have to overcome odds far greater than those the GOP faced when Newt Gingrich engineered his historic takeover in 1994. Back then, according to a study by the National Committee for an Effective Congress, 117 seats were "marginal" -- that is, close enough to be considered competitive. Last year, thanks in large part to Republican-friendly redistricting, the number of close races shrank to only thirty-four.

Over lunch near his office in Chicago, Emanuel previews his strategy to win the fifteen seats needed to retake the House. Unlike others in the Democratic leadership who seem reluctant to criticize the president and are fearful of their own party's grass roots, Emanuel knows it will take an aggressive, all-fronts effort to prevail in next year's midterm elections. Democrats, he says, will have to raise record amounts of campaign cash, challenge the Republicans in dozens of districts, offer concrete alternatives to Bush's failed policies -- and above all, hammer home a clear and consistent message.

"We're the party of change," Emanuel tells me. "We're the party of a new direction -- a break from rampant cronyism and the status quo. Period."

If that message has a familiar ring, it may be because Republicans used essentially the same formula to seize control of the House a decade ago. Indeed, given his hard-charging reputation, Emanuel often elicits comparisons to the man who led the GOP to victory in 1994. "Rahm is the Democrats' Newt Gingrich," says Bruce Reed, who served with Emanuel in the Clinton White House. "He understands how much ideas matter, he always knows his message, he takes no prisoners and he only plays to win."

[TexasObserver]

1. Yep, I don't like the same things about him, but I also like his competence.

We've suffered through an administration that made ideology, not competence, its measure.

I'll err on the side of competence.

I am confident in Obama's ability to know he's the boss, not those he hires to help him.

[girl gone mad]

2. kick for the day crowd. n/t