Mr. Emanuel was the driving force behind the Democratic campaign to recapture the House and he hunted down candidates even in unfriendly, conservative districts to find the 15 additional seats he needed. Idealism, as the film vividly shows, took a back seat to the crass bottom-line calculation of who could win. Full Story »
Posted by Chris Finnie
The one thing Emanuel did well in 2006 was self-promotion. Three years on, it's still working. In fact, as head of the DCCC, Emanuel recruited and backed 22 candidates for the House--sometimes against candidates with better chances of winning. Of those he promoted, only half won their primaries. Only half of those won in the general election. So the oft-repeated fiction that Emanuel was central to winning those 15 seats for the Democrats is only half true. Shame on Baker for perpetuating it, even if the movie he's sort of reviewing does.
Hoard Dean as head of the DNC deserves as much credit as Emanuel, but rarely gets it. Party grassroots activists do as well. But we almost never do. I guess Emanuel is a more compelling figure to filmmakers. I know this because I worked on staff with 2 congressional campaigns that year. One candidate he defeated in the primary with a candidate who lost in the general. The other candidate defeated his in the primary and went on to win in the general. The win had nothing to do with Emanuel. The loss did. He backed the losing candidate heavily and recruited her personally.