The White House’s behind-the-scenes attempt at orchestrating state primary races, notably Pennsylvania and Colorado, is not a scandal. After all, why wouldn’t the Obama Administration, in the name of pragmatic politics, want to do more than merely hope that the candidate best positioned to win the general and help the cause actually advanced from the primary?
That’s understandable. But political dealmaking is also White House business as usual for an Administration that promised anything but. Recall: transparency as an Obaman shibboleth. That’s what’s scandalous. Either the Administration needs to be faithful to its self-touted ideals or it needs to leave no fingerprints. Does consummate gatekeeper and political expediter Rahm Emanuel have his president’s political back or not?