Rahm Emanual loves Dan Lipinski

by: Sandra_Verthein

Thu Jan 17, 2008 at 08:35:24 AM CST

On November 17, 2007, just two months ago today, Rahm Emanual's "Our Common Values" PAC made a $2,500 contribution to Congressman Dan Lipinski's reelection campaign.

• AFTER Lipinski challenger Mark Pera's endorsement by Daily Kos, Open Left and Swing State Project
• AFTER Mark Pera's endorsement by Firedoglake, Crooks and Liars, and Down with Tyranny
• AFTER Mark Pera's endorsement by DFA
• AFTER Mark Pera's endorsement by NARAL Pro-Choice America
• and AFTER Mark Pera's endorsement by my local DFA group, Northside DFA.

Which means when my DFA friends and I were out there freezing our toenails off knocking on doors trying to get rid of Lipinski and elect Mark Pera, when Kossacks and FDLers and the rest of the netroots were scrounging for couch change to try to get rid of Lipinski and elect Mark Pera, Rahm was writing a check to help Lipinski's re-election campaign.

But we already knew that, didn't we?

That's a picture of Christine Cegelis. Remember her? I do. I was her campaign blogger in 2004, and part of her field operation in 2006. I remember when Rahm spent a year trying to recruit a nice, solid, conservative Dem to run against our "too liberal" candidate, and I remember the $8 million that was spent trying to get his candidate into office (it didn't work, BTW).

Remember John Yarmuth, Carol Shea-Porter , Jerry McNerny, and John Hall? They are four of our newest members of congress, progressives all of them, who had to make it to congress by first clawing their way past more of Rahm's conservative Dem recruits.

Remember Larry Kissel (NC-08), who came within 350 votes of beating Republican Robin Hayes? Rahm wanted pro-life veteran Tim Dunn to be the candidate, but when a progressive and unabashedly populist social studies teacher got the nomination, they took a pass. That is, until the week before the election when they suddenly jumped on board -- but aw shucks, it was too late. Remember Victoria Wulsin (OH-02), who almost won against Republican Jean "Jack Murtha is a traitor" Schmidt with 49%? Remember Eric Massa (NY-29), who almost beat Republican Randy Kuhl with 48%? Remember Charlie Brown (CA-04), who nearly beat Republican John "I Heart Abramoff" Doolittle with 46% against the incumbent's 49%? The netroots was on board early with these strong progressive candidates, yet for some reason Rahm and the DCCC completely ignored them until the last week of the election.

And the list goes on -- the might-have-beens that *could* be changing the direction of our party ... or not.

Rahm has decided what kind of party he wants. From local blogger Archpundit:

Lipinski isn’t just a guy handed a Congressional seat, he’s a supposed Democrat with an incredibly reactionary record. His ACLU rating–one of the lowest Democrats outside of the South/border states. He has zeros from NARAL and Planned Parenthood.

So no family planning at all. Dandy. He and Costello were the only Illinois Democrats to get zeros–the rest? 100s. When the chance was there to vote for contraceptive use by those receiving money in other nations, he voted against it and he voted against funding Planned Parenthood under Title X–contraceptive funding.
From the Family Research Council–71 percent approval. To get that? He voted to remove the power of the Courts to review cases involving the Pledge of Allegiance. He voted against embryonic stem cell research. He voted to not allow those who win federal civil liberties cases related to religious cases to receive court fees. IOW, if you sued to protect your civil liberties and won in a religious liberties case, you could not be compensated for the costs incurred to enforce your rights.

He’s from a heavily Latino District–his rating from the the leading anti-immigrant group–60%. And that’s down from 71 percent and higher previously.

A big zero on the gay and lesbian measure from Progressive Punch

Drum Major Institute focusing on progressive policies for families, 50 percent.

And, of course, he voted to ignore the 4th Amendment and give one of the most corrupt and incompetent administrations ever the ability to listen to domestic phone calls without a search warrant.

Lipinski must go. He has a conservative agenda in a liberal district. He ignores his constituents including the 20 percent Latino population in IL-3 and he has little interest in actually being a democrat-small d intended.

The Illinois Democratic primary is February 5th. Find out how to volunteer for Mark Pera by contacting the campaign TODAY. Donate to Mark Pera at our Northside DFA Act Blue Page

NOTE: If you live on Chicago's north side, my DFA group will be phonebanking for Mark Pera tonight, and will be out knocking on doors for Mark this Saturday and Sunday and every weekend through the election. We especially need help on election day! For more info and to sign up go to our dfalink page at www.dfalink.com/ndfa.