Politics / Rahm Emanuel’s Losing Record The Democratic establishment’s golden boy has shifted the party to the right and lost ground in crucial elections. A specter is haunting the 2028 Democratic presidential field: the specter of reactionary centrism, which sports the political brand name of Rahm Emanuel. You also, not incidentally, have to disregard most of the actual political career of one Rahm Emanuel. Emanuel also sought, unsuccessfully, to turn Clinton into a hard-line immigration hawk, urging the president to “claim and achieve record deportations of criminal aliens.” Grim as Emanuel’s litany of policy calls is, it may not represent his most woeful legacy in Democratic politics.