The question for those who wish downplay Emanuel's role is this: would you rather have had someone else heading the DCCC?

I have a better question: why has Howard Dean become The Man Who Wasn't There in the celebrations? Why hasn't he been given public credit for his basic part in this sweep?

Didn't Rahm -- er, Schumer -- oppose both Tester and Webb in the primaries?

Totally. One of the messages of this election has to be that a party needs to have BOTH a committed base AND a happy big-tent centrist wing to hold a majority. Democrats are by nature the more tolerant and less ideologically slavering party; that ought to be a big advantage, not a weakness.

Schumer was anti-Tester and anti-Webb before the Dem primary. Too bad about Duckworth but neophytes probably shouldn't start their political career running for Congress. I would give Dean more credit than Emmanuel but the WY and Idaho prove we still need to work out West. The 2008 convention needs to be in Denver.

Did Emanuel not think that liberal voters, Americans didn't see him flat-out give Howard Dean the shaft?

It’s NOT a big tent party, never was, it’s an elitist centrist tent, and Howard Dean clearly was NOT welcomed, and WE DID NOTICE THAT. The net-roots DID see the gulf between them and the totally lack of any mention of Howard Dean.

This is why, no matter want, I will never vote for Hillary as she is proving to be a very ungracious person. The Clinton's are still walking in lock-step with the Bushies. Hillary(and Bill) are still going to try and keep those military bases in Iraq. Americans are done with that idea.

I love how Republicans and Zell Miller Democrats are saying that the only reason the Democrats won was that they veered to the right and rejected the liberal wing of their party.

Their poster boy for this is Ned Lamont. What they fail to mention is that among Democrats Lamont beat Lieberman 65%-33%. The only reason Lieberman won was that 70% of the Republicans betrayed their own candidate and voted for Lieberman.

To follow up on Wilbur's comment, we need to emphasize that the Lieberman win does not in any way represent a victory for conservatism, or even a victory for foreign policy hawks.

In any ordinary election cycle, if one party substantially splits its vote between two candidates, the other party remains unified and wins. The Lamont primary win created a golden pick-up opportunity for the Republicans, which they pre-emptively surrendered without a fight due to their own weakness and their awareness of the spectacular unpopularity of conservative Republicans in New England.

Ultimately, Democrats voted almost 2-1 for the anti-war Democrat over the pro-war Democrat, and both independents and Republicans voted overwhelmingly for a Democrat who is perceived as a centrist over a conservative Republican. This election showed the same trends as nearly every other race in this election cycle. Were it not for Lieberman's self-centrism, Lamont would have certainly won a two-way race.

It's a shame that Lamont lost, but it was simply a result of the unique dynamics of the race, and hardly a ringing affirmation of neoconservative foreign policy.

Tester and Webb were only picked up by Emmanuel after the grassroots put them on the map. A lot of the marquee House races Emmanuel flogged ended up disappointing--Shays vs. Farrell, Duckworth vs. Roskam (honestly, I can't believe anyone would vote for the nasty hack over the wounded war veteran, but whatever), Lucas in KY, Madrid vs. Wilson, and of course Harold Ford.

Look, Ellsworth was also supported by the netroots. Both sides got best results when they worked together as opposed to when they fought as with Duckworth/Cegalis.

I think Rahm needs us more than we need him because without us he has no ground troops but without him we just pressure whoever replaces him. That is, Rahm needs WHO WE ARE and we need WHAT HE IS.

I'm a Duckworth supporter. I'd like to know how much money the NRCC put into the sixth district. There were constant phone calls --- most fraudulent --- and more-than-daily mailers. Millions and millions of dollars spent in Henry Hyde's supposedly safe Republican district. and Roskam won by...a point and a half.

As far as I'm concerned, Duckworth was a good choice (Cegelis would have gotten murdered) and did a great job. Unlike her opponent, she ran a clean campaign. Her one misstep actually came from a DCCC ad ("Dr. Seuss") that she didn't control.

Dean's 50 state strategy has to be given credit. Without it, when the wave started to develop there wouldn't have been candidates and staff in place to take advantage of it.

This doesn't mean that Emmanuel's targeting isn't important. You should concentrate your resources where you think you'll do best. But some percentage of time, money and effort should go into all districts to keep the pressure on and capitalize on mistakes.

But, Ed, was 100% of DNC time, money and effort the appropriate percentage?

Props to goethean. Rahm didn't bus hundreds of hardworking, dedicated volunteers up to Lombard to canvass, phonebank, & work endless hours to Tammy. We did that ourselves because we deeply believed in her. She was a terrific candidate - tireless, focused, good-humored - & ran a tight campaign. Plus her story & personality attracted oodles of free, positive attention. It is unlikely that Cegalis would have done nearly as well in what is still a very conservative area against a well-funded, well-known, established Roskam. Durbin & Rahm deserve kudos for reaching out to Tammy & urging her to run. And the various roots, net & grass & otherwise, deserve kudos for getting behind her strongly in the general, even though their favored candidate lost in the primary.

To give a specific example, Tim Walz in Minnesota's 1st Congressional District. This was a race that was not high on the DCCC's list at first, and made it onto the Daily Kos netroots page some time in the summer of '06. Around October, the polls started showing this race withing the margin of error.

Now, according to Perlstein's/kos'/Bower's telling of this, Emmanuel looked at these results and said, "Oh no! I can't have these netroots rabble electing candidates who'll oppose my nefarious DLC agenda! I'm gonna ignore Walz, or cut him off at the knees, or something." That doesn't bear any relation to reality. Emmanuel responded to the polls by sending in lots of money in advertising to help Walz out.

So, I think people with an ax to grind are trying to spin contests like this as showing an oppositional relationship between the evil establishment Dems and the heroic orange-banner-toting netroots when the facts on the ground really don't bear that interpretation out.

It's also important to note that the people who deserve the most credit for success in these races are the candidates themselves, the strength of their operations, good "atmospherics", and local concerns. Kos and the DCCC both contributed to specific races in terms of raising some money from outside sources, or running some ads against the Republican's voting record, but they are both outsiders here. To have either the netroots or the DCCC try to take the all the credit for someone else's work doesn't track very well.