Bonfire Of The MonkeyFixers!



(image via newsweek)



(image via dragonballyee)

The closer we get to a brokered convention in the Mile High City, the closer we get to the dawn of the Monkeyfixers, starring people with Dickensian names like Harold M. Ickes (Exaggerated cough suggesting feigned detachment). Earlier this week the gritty Governor Ed Rendell -- a well-etched comic caricature of an old tyme party machine boss pol -- was playing all the angles, presenting himself as the Go-To guy who might fix this thing of ours in the case of Senator Clinton's loss. That didn't happen. As in Nevada and in Texas, Senator Obama was unable to close the deal. So Rendell, instead of in the role as party healer and unifier, played the scotch-drinking, cigar-puffing victor.

Enter: Congressman Rahm Emmanuel. One wonders what foodstuffs and incendiary reading material was being imbibed at the Emmanuel household -- his brother, Ari, is the inspiration for Entourage's thumotic Ari Gold -- in order that two such talented American originals eventually ensued. Last Night Rahm appeared on The Charlie Rose Show touting his bons fides as a Clinton ally who is allso pals with Obama's chief strategist David Axelrod. Emmanuel, is not endorsing either (his role in the second Clinton administration is offset by his desire to have a future in Illinois politics and not going against the hometown hero). This puts him in a unique position as the de facto Go-To guy, when this whole thing wraps.

Emmanuel, expert at staying on-message (something he learned spinning from his Clinton days), gave away little. He did say, however, that he did not want this thing to get as messy as the bruising Carter-Ted Kennedy episode at the 1980 Democratic convention. Also, Emmanuel delivered the Clintonian message that people should chill out, that this race -- including the Osama ad in Philly, and the Clinton ghettoization in South Carolina -- is not as rough as races in, say, his native "tough guy" Chicago district.

Will Hillary become Obama's running mate, as this blog is promoting? Who knows, but if it does happen, Emmanuel will be the man that puts it together.