Glad to see that Rahm founded YouTube.  Maybe he can spend that $1.6 billion sales price on Tammy Duckworth's next race.

This is important; would you cross post this at DailyKos?

Bill Brasky's got nothing on Rahm Emanuel.

God bless Chris Bowers.  Chris is the most precious natural resource in the United States.

My dream marriage is Chris and Jane Hamsher.  If they ever got together, the entire world would explode.

Chris Bowers for Emir of the Universe.

Rahm Emanuel is ten feet tall, weighs two-tons, breathes fire, and could eat a hammer and take a shotgun blast standing.

The Great Wall of China was originally created to keep Rahm Emanuel out. It failed miserably.

Most people have 23 pairs of chromosomes. Rahm Emanuel has 72... and they're all poisonous.

When Chuck Norris sends in his taxes, he sends blank forms and includes only a picture of himself, crouched and ready to attack. Rahm Emanuel has not had to pay taxes, ever.

# The quickest way to a man's heart is with Chuck Norris' fist.

Rahm Emanuel invented Kentucky Fried Chicken's famous secret recipe, with eleven herbs and spices. But nobody ever mentions the twelfth ingredient: Fear.

Rahm Emanuel can win a game of Connect Four in only three moves.

There is no theory of evolution, just a list of creatures Rahm Emanuel allows to live.

Rahm Emanuel once ate three 72 oz. steaks in one hour. He spent the first 45 minutes having sex with his waitress.

Rahm Emanuel is the only man to ever defeat a brick wall in a game of tennis.

The opening scene of the movie "Saving Private Ryan" is loosely based on games of dodgeball Rahm Emanuel played in second grade.

Rahm Emanuel once shot down a German fighter plane with his finger, by yelling, "Bang!"

This of course was adapted from here.

Rahm Emanuel's tears cure cancer...too bad he's never cried!

Chuck just doesn't know it yet!

http://www.chucknorrisfacts.com/

Great post.

Does this mean Rahm invented the internet too? Or does Gore get to keep that distinction?

Well, we know Rahm didn't "invent the internet." So there's that.

This disappoints me, since I usually respect Bowers quite a bit. Who gives a flying f**k if the Chicago Trib gives Rahm credit? I know the issue is bigger than that, but why all the incessant bitching about who gets credit?

That stuff is childish...our people have a nation to govern, and we need to help them do it, as well as to elect more of our people. 2008 is the prize, and my eyes are straight ahead.  

But I got better...

First off, it pretty clearly said "how Rahm helped end" Republican dominance. And he is largely (no, not 100%) responsible for our victory in the House.

Second, it's a Chicago paper, and Rahm is a hometown boy. Of course they're going to print things that shine the light positively on him.

Third, when did you become such a whiny little bitch?

Rahm voted fifty million times on Election Day.

Got 'im!!  That'll keep him busy with the Feds for awhile.... ;-)

Book him, Danno...

Curiously enough, there is one race Rahn lost--or withdrew from because he knew he would lose--the race for majority whip.

The House leadership choices, Pelosi on down,  including Committee chairs, gives some hints about which  direction the Democratic house majority will be going.

Rahm is losing this battle badly.  The Chicago Tribune article is probably a puff piece reward for some "insider information" he gave them on the elections.  Not that he won't win some skirmishes down the line, and probably cause trouble, too, but right now he is losing.

I wonder if all of this trumpeting how mainstream and center the new Democratic house will be doesn't cause some problems for the Republicans, who are going to need to brand it as a bunch of wild-eyed radicals.  It might have some inoculating effect.  It makes tRepublicans feel better to say that their philosophy has not been rejected, only co-opted by Democrats, but I think they would have been better off saying that the Dems are leftist loons.

Rahm can obviously multi-task like a crazed muthaf#*k'r.

I'm impressed.

Rahm Emmanuel has just blown my mind.

Rahm brushed my teeth this morning!

Seriously, Rahm needs to wake the hell up. This election was not about him. I would not have worked so hard if I had to take marching orders from a guy like that.

But a former Governor of Vermont, that is another story.

he remade the Democratic Party.  I'm just pissed that he single-handedly beat my Tigers in the World Series.

To bring cold hard facts to the argument:

I've been analyzing the spending of the DCCC and their net effectiveness.  I got all of the 2006 contributions from committees (and individuals) and looked at what races the DCCC gave money to and what the net result was.  

The short version is that the "swing state" strategy that Rahm was espousing (and following) initially, would probably have let the GOP keep the house.  The fact that other groups (like ActBlue, etc.) were pushing the 50 state strategy brought a number of new races into play that allowed the DCCC to jump in during the last month or two.  But if noone had been pushing those races, it's hard to imagine that they would have been positioned for a win in the final months.

Here's a summary of what i mean:

- Before 9/1: Of the races that were won (or who are still in doubt), the DCCC spent more than 10K on only 11 of them.  (Well, 14 if you count the contributions to the primary where they backed a challenger to the winner ;-) )  If you lower the threshold to 5K, they only had 17 winners.  Compare that to a total of 27 races where they spent 5K or more.  (I mean, 'cmon, 5K is nothing...)

- Between 9/1 and 10/1: Of the races that were won (or who are still in doubt), the DCCC spent more than 5K on only 15 of them.  This is well into where they were getting polling data and seeing which races were tight.  During that period they spent $7.3M.  They spent >5K on only 21 races!  They spent huge cash on a lot of races that were lost (like KY4, OH15, PA6, VA2, IL6).  

- After 10/1:  they got a little better, they spent >20K on 18 of the winning races.  During that period they spent $14M (and still blew huge amounts in loosing efforts in PA6, KY4, OH1, OH15, VA2, CT4, OR5, CO4, etc., etc.)

So in the last month, the DCCC did jump into a few races that they hadn't supported before, but they still ignore a number of them that were key to the margin of victory.  And more to the point, the only reason that the races were close was because others (like ActBlue, blogosphere, etc. had kept the campagns financed, staffed, and motivated.)

Now i realize that i'm just giving a summary and there are ways to quibble with details (like is it fair to ding the DCCC for not having spent much money on TX-22 which seemed like a sure pickup...)  But there is a lot of interesting stuff in looking at the big picture like this - the numbers show an strategic investment pattern by the DCCC which was very out of sync with the eventual margin of victory.  Rahm should be counting his lucky stars and thanking the various progressive organizations for keeping so many candidates close.  And in particular he owes Dean a big apology for getting upset about Deans spending practices.  

I plan to post more details of the cruched numbers (and the datasets behind them).  But all of this begs the question of "why?."  Why were progressive, underfinanced candidates so successful (relatively) while the "centrist" candidates underperformed.  I have some theories, but i'm still putting the numbers together on that...

First of all, kudos on a very witty hit piece.

Rahm, like Carville and Lieberman, is a bloviator of Bill O'Reilly magnitude.

And yet some of you say "pointless" and how dare Chris show any dissension within Democratic ranks?

Wow! I guess it is true that there are deeply conservative right-wing moralistic prisses inside our ranks. Like Rev. Haggard, do you secretly go to another website after posting your prudish anti-humor screeds here......where you let lose with hilarious Dennis Miller bile?

It's called being human people, i.e.  having a sense of humor and pointing out the b.s. within one's own ranks.

Or maybe y'all haven't been watching Rahm on TV when he's directly asked whether
he now gives some credit to Dean and he mumbles
an indistinct but clearly dismissive..."mmmmph".

It is Rahm and Schumer and Carville who still want to get Dean fired. Who publicly criticized again and again. It is their old inner-circle
lobbyist ubercorporate cabal which refused to
support the will of the people (Lamont) and is in bed with Lieberman and K-Street.

But nooooooo, heaven forbid we have a bit of levity pointing out their arrogant narcissism
which is just as toxic to the health of a progressive Democratic party as FOX and Rove.

Nice.

It's a pretty neat trick to respond to innuendo with more innuendo. Rahm doesn't have to say a thing about taking credit. Come to think about it, he HASN'T claimed sole credit for the Democratic victory, or said anything close to the bragging you and the rest of his critics claim he's done.

Try this. Give me ONE legitimate quote from Rep. Emanuel where he claims that he's the main force behind the victory. Not the WaPo senrtence where the authors lump Emanuel with 'other Democrats' who, they claim, supposedly spoke at a private meeting about stifling some liberal agenda somewhere in the House. In that article, the authors use their own context, their own words, and their own bias to make their ridiculous point about what Emanuel supposedly said at the meeting. Why is there no source provided for the alleged statements? Why aren't the authors able to provide a standard, proper quote?

Because there is no recorded quote of Emanuel taking sole credit for the Democratic victory. This is a lie, furthered by folks aiming to divide the party for their own ideological elevation. Rahm has NEVER claimed sole credit. If he did, you could stop using opinion pieces as gospel truth and use his own words (in legitimate quotes and sourced) as they would certainly appear SOMEWHERE.

The Chicago Trib article shows an aggressive party loyalist who hates himself some republicans. I thought we wanted this kind of energy in our party, giving the republicans hell on earth. Thatwas the focus of the article. You'd deny him the work he did, described in the article. You seem to want to deny Emanuel ANY credit at all. That's absurd and despicable, in my view.

This new piece from Chris is a desperate ploy to advance the idea of a progressive Democratic party; an idea I too relish, but, it's not at all the reality. I don't know how these folks who've been elected with middle-of-the-road appeals are going to be marginalized and still have our party produce on any of the promises made during the election. All of our elected Democrats will be challenged to pull together to advance these.

This post, and the smearing of Rep. Emanuel, is a pathetic attempt to divide our party. A foolish effort.