How to rebuild America (Rahm tells us how American can become Chicago)

WaPo ^ | 11/24/2012 | Rahm Emanuel

[RoosterRedux]

Too much post-election analysis has focused on voter demographics and campaign mechanics, leaving Democrats in danger of drawing the wrong lessons from our electoral success.

Demographics alone are not destiny. There is nothing in this year’s election returns that guarantees Democrats a permanent majority in the years to come. President Obama and the Democratic Party earned the support of key groups — young people, single women, Latinos, African Americans, auto workers in the Rust Belt and millions of other middle-class Americans — because of our ideas.

But we cannot expect Republicans to cede the economic argument so readily, or to fall so far short on campaign mechanics, the next time around.

So, instead of resting on false assurances of underlying demographic advantages, the Democratic Party must follow through on our No. 1 priority, which the president set when he took office and reemphasized throughout this campaign: It is time to come home and rebuild America.

In Chicago, our initiative of “Building a New Chicago” adopts a similar view, with improvements to areas as varied as education and physical infrastructure.

While infrastructure improvements have been neglected on a federal level for decades, Chicago is making one of the nation’s largest coordinated investments, putting 30,000 residents to work over the next three years improving our roads, rails and runways; repairing our aged water system; and increasing access to gigabit-speed broadband. We are paying for these critical improvements through a combination of reforms, efficiencies and direct user fees, as well as creating the nation’s first city-level public-private infrastructure bank. Democrats should champion these kinds of innovative financing tools at a national level.

If we want to build a future in which the middle class can succeed, we must continue the push for reform that the president began with Race to the Top..

[muawiyah]

You need to enter at www.washingtonpost.com, not at that wapo ref to the story alone. Else you can’t enter comments. I stuffed a few in there just to make sure.

[IslamE]

Rahm is an anagram for Harm.

[grumpygresh]

Why not forced labor, such as the work battalions suggested by the ballerina? What other crises could emerge resulting in martial law and overflowing FEMA camps? Gun confiscation sounds good too.
This seems like an occupied country now. If a nuke took out Washington DC, would I even shed a tear?

[Makana]

“While infrastructure improvements have been neglected on a federal level for decades, “

Come to Massachusetts, where the orange barrel is the state flower. Big Dig ($ 2 Billion becomes $23 Billion), Route 95 in construction, overbuilt federal courthouses on the most expensive waterfront real estate in Boston, etc., etc.

[AZLiberty]

This is the line that gives me fits:

By embracing the president’s “all of the above” strategy, Democrats can own the policies that will begin to make the United States energy-independent in the next four years, a goal that has eluded the past eight presidents.

Rahm is telling the Democrats to hurry up and stake out the credit for the coming privately-funded, privately-researched, privately-executed energy boom.