Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Democrats care more about being right than winning on Monday and told them to “take a chill pill” during a talk at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
“Winning’s everything,” Emanuel, a former Obama White House chief of staff, said while addressing a crowd of students, according to the Chicago Tribune. “If you don’t win, you can’t make the public policy. I say that because it is hard for people in our party to accept that principle. Sometimes, you’ve just got to win, okay? And our party likes to be right, even if they lose.”
Emanuel said, “I don’t go to moral victory speeches. I can’t stand them. I’ve never lost an election. It’s about winning because if you win, you then have the power to go do what has to get done.”
He sarcastically added, “If you lose, you can write the book about what happened — great, that’s really exciting!”
Emanuel told the Democrats that he believes their top priority should be “redistricting,” along with focusing on how to divide the GOP against itself. “Wherever there’s a disagreement among Republicans, I’m for one of those disagreements,” he said. “I’m all for it. The president’s with Russia? I’m with John McCain and Lindsey Graham, I’m for NATO! Why? It’s a wedge. Wedges have to be schisms, schisms have to be divides.”
Emanuel also pointed out that “Democrats love doing a firing squad in a circle. Stop that. Don’t attack; they are too moderate. Forget about it. Stop it.” He added that his political party is currently “not strong enough” to go full vigilante on the Republicans.
“It took us a long time to get this low,” Emanuel said. “It ain’t gonna happen in 2018,” he told the crowd reassuringly. “Take a chill pill, man. You gotta be in this for the long haul. And if you think it’s going to be a quick turnaround like that, it’s not.”
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