I wanted to call attention to some remarks by former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel at the Cornell Club in New York, reported by Jonathan Alter in the Washington Monthly. Here’s a sample:
If Democrats win the House, which I believe they will, what they do between 2026 and 2028 will determine not just whether we win the White House, but whether our relationship with the public becomes transformational rather than transactional.
Ken Martin and the DNC should be living in Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. There shouldn’t be a single empty spot on the ballot, from school board to governor. If there isn’t a Democrat on every line, riding the wave of 2026, the whole operation deserves to be whupped. This election is a wave election. You build school boards, you build a farm team, and you organize early in the places that will decide 2028.
Remember this: We’ve had three elections in a row where just 600,000 Americans in seven states decided who runs the country. We should have started a year ago, but at a minimum, before filing deadlines close, every office should be contested. All you’re going to hear about is US senators. I want to hear about school boards. Look at the attention paid to a public utility commissioner race in Georgia. Most people didn’t even know the job existed, but it told you more about Georgia’s governor and Senate races than any national chatter.
I think you’ll find his remarks interesting.
I’ve ridden in the elevator in the Thompson Center with Mayor Emanuel on more than one occasion, chatting casually with him on our ride. I think he’s a personable guy. I think he wants to be president but I do not believe he will be the Democratic candidate in 2028.
I don’t think he realizes that the Democratic Party which he led to victory in Congressional elections as chairman of the DCCC twenty years ago no longer exists. It has passed him and center-left Democrats like him by. I think what he is expressing is nostalgia.
I also think that the Democrats could do much worse than heeding his advice for the midterm elections or picking him as their 2028 presidential candidate. Emanuel’s advice is sound, but the Democratic Party no longer values the kind of politics that would implement it.
