If you want a behind the scenes look into the Carville Dean Rahm feud this past election, Ryan Lizza of GQ has a juicy little article with morsels of beltway bullshit and behind-the-scene nuggets.
The winner quote from the article has to be the insufferable Mary Matalin hugging James Carville who blatantly states what has been quite obvious to the netroots:
"The thing that stuns me," Carville says, "is that this is supposed to be a rigged deal—chairman of the party! The congressional leadership, the fund-raisers, people like that are supposed to decide. You [the state-party chairs and DNC members] are supposed to get a call and are told who to vote for! You’re not supposed to really vote on this shit!"
Carville better wake up. People powered politics is growing and isn't going anywhere, and if he doesn't evolve and accept this reality, he'll become extinct (which, in the political sphere, would be a good thing).
It gets better. When Rahm and Carville didn't get their way, they pulled a page from their book of sleaze:
Rahm had only one more option for pressuring Dean: start leaking to the press. A senior aide to Rahm says Rahm believed that if there were enough newspaper accounts filled with details about how Dean’s stinginess was going to cost Democrats the House, Dean would have to cave.
Really? As usual they underestimated Dean:
But the stories came and went, and Dean held firm. "What I think Rahm didn’t recognize," Dean’s aide says, "was that’s exactly the wrong way to move Dean." In the end, Rahm—or rather his staff¬, because at this point he refused to talk to Dean—had to go crawling back to the DNC chairman and accept Dean’s offer of $2.4 million. Even worse, Dean refused to give the money directly to Rahm. "Governor Dean had concerns that Rahm was going to spend it all on TV," Dean’s aide says. Instead, it would be funneled through the state parties.
So now we have some more insight into the behind the scenes beltway saga. Carville seeking to eat his own. And an even better understanding why Carville's Donald Trump-like ego fueled his whining tirade after the elections about wanting Dean to be replaced as DNC chair.
For the record, I do give a portion of the credit to Rahm for some successes in 2006. Doesn't mean I like him, nor his '06 strategy within the party against Dean (which happily backfired in his face), but I give some credit where credit is due.
As for Carville, he should just join forces with Mary Matalin the dark-side of the force and be done with it.
The full article is linked above and has a lot of good details about Clinton's role in the races and more on the bizarre personality of Rahm.
Hat tip to the The Daily Politic for bringing the article to my attention.