According to Democratic candidates who ran for House of Representative seats in 2006, Rahm Emanuel, then head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, took sides during the Democratic primary elections, favoring conservative candidates, including former Republicans, and sidelining candidates who were running in favor of withdrawal from Iraq....
...According to Doug Thornell, spokesperson for the DCCC, "The policy of the DCCC is not to get involved in primaries, unless there is an unusual circumstance that demands it. I cannot speculate on what those circumstances might be. The majority of these cases [2008 primaries] will be left up to the voters on the ground. Meddling hasn't taken place this cycle, and for the most part last cycle. That isn't an accurate way to describe what happened. We are cognizant of having local support for our candidates."...
However, a source close to the DNC indicated that there was disagreement between Dean and Emanuel over election tactics. In his recent book, "The Thumpin'," Naftali Bendavid, a journalist who spent months inside the DCCC operation and at Emanuel's side, reported a heated conversation between Dean, Emanuel and Senator Charles Schumer (D-New York) regarding election strategies of the DCCC and the DNC. At the time, Dean was focusing on helping local organizations across the country to mobilize their communities to support Democrats. Emanuel wanted to focus the resources of the national party on specific races that were the most likely to be competitive for Democrats. According to Bendavid, Emanuel said to Dean, "You're nowhere, Howard. Your field plan is not a field plan. That's fucking bullshit ... I know your field plan - it doesn't exist. I've gone around the country with these races. I've seen your people. There is no plan, Howard."
How Emanuel came to his decisions about which candidates to support against Democratic opponents is known only to Emanuel and his staff. Emanuel declined direct comment on this story. But an examination of individual races reveals a pattern of financial and political support for wealthy conservative candidates and an assault on their grassroots-supported opponents who were running on platforms that included a full withdrawal of US forces from Iraq.
Read the whole report on the DCCC's smarmy "We're Not in Kansas anymore" tactics.
