This is one of the best and most complete recitations of why Rahm sucks goats that I've read since the elections. Save it, and throw it in the face of everyone who parrots the "victory for centrists" and "moderate mandate" crap. Here are some highlights:

The failure of Emanuel's strategy can be demonstrated by the numbers. Of the 21 "first wave" picks announced on April 27th, only nine have been declared winners, with one (Joe Courtney in CT-02) holding a 170 vote lead over the incumbent, and three others losing by 1400 (Madrid, NM-01), 2700 (Kilroy, OH-05) and 3600 (Burner WA-08) votes in races that are still considered "too close to call." Four of Emanuel's "first wave" picks lost by over 10,000 votes (Busansky, FL-09; Lucas KY-04; Derby NV-02; and Cranley, OH-01).

Only three of Emanuel's picks received support by the two largest ActBlue organizations (Murphy, PA-06; and Gillibrand, NY-20 both supported by Blue America, with Burner supported by NetRoots.) At least three of the DCCC's "first wave" picks were against incumbents who were directly implicated in the Abramoff scandal (Hayworth, Taylor, Sweeney), and a fourth (Nick Lampson) was running against a write in candidate for Tom Delay's old seat. (Lampson did not run for Delay's unexpired term, but his Write-In opponent received more votes in that contest than Lampson received in the general election.)

On July 12, the Red to Blue page added a "second wave" of 14 candidates, one of whom was running for an open Democratic seat (Wilson, OH-06) and thus not a "Red to Blue" candidate. There were eight "winners" selected-- 5 of whom (Joe Sestak, Patrick Murphy, Chris Carney, Bruce Braley, and Mike Arcuri) had received significant support from either Blue America or Netroots before being "piggybacked" on the efforts of the progressive community.

Of the three remaining winners, two were in districts that had candidates with major scandal problems (Ney's district, where Zachary Space beat a replacement candidate after Ney won the primary and was indicted, and the district of Abramoff associate Chris Chocola.). Only Ed Perlmutter (CO-07), running for an open seat in a district in which Bush received only 48% of the vote in 2004, represents a "pick" by the DCCC where their help was probably a key to victory.

The "second wave" also included two candidates (Weaver and Wetterling) who lost by 23,000 votes. (One of the "second wave" races, Christine Jennings in FL-13, is being contested by Jennings, who lost an open seat race by 373 votes, with an undercount of 18,000 votes that even Jeb Bush acknowledges is "strange.")

In other words, out of 35 races that the DCCC targeted for conversion to the Democratic Party by early July, Emanuel only managed to find "winners" in 12 of them on his own-- at least five of his other victories were based on progressive bloggers providing the seed money that demonstrated that these were viable candidates. Moreover, the DCCC picks included at least 6 races where the challenger does not seem to have had a realistic chance of success-- in other words, Emanuel directed money to candidates that could have been better used elsewhere.

I suppose this analysis is the only reason why I, a progressive, should get behind Murtha for top dog instead of Steny. Clearly, the DCCC folks have their heads screwed on backwards, and Rahm is chief of the idiots who are trying to win by losing, again and again and again. I have hope these losers can be pushed out of power, but it's clear that even when they lose, there's always someone in the media willing to credit them with someone else's victories, and to tell us why Rahm and the DLCers in the party are 'good for us.'

Looking at the numbers is a real "Luke, trust your feelings moment," and I'm glad to have been proven fucking right along with the rest of the netroots. Here's to the hope that our victories will eventually lead to a party in which the idiots are relegated to the sidelines.