(That quote seems appropriate to recall in view of tonight’s DFL Party precinct caucuses, but no disrespect is intended toward precinct chairmen and chairwomen of any party.)

Despite Limbaugh’s GOP preeminence and his having provided Franken with an entree into writing political books, Franken professes not to care about him anymore. From an Air America interview last month:

FRANKEN: … The only downside was, you know, the Republican talking point that I was a communist or a socialist or something like that on Air America, that I was the same as Rush Limbaugh. I would answer: “No, I’m the opposite of Rush Limbaugh.” I’m not the mirror image, I’m the opposite.

AA: Given your famous spats with Limbaugh and O’Reilly, what have they been saying about your success, or do you now tune them out?

FRANKEN: Well, you know what? I’ve already been doing that. I don’t know what they’ve been saying. I really don’t. I haven’t been paying any attention. That is the great thing about doing this. You really stop paying attention to that. … The past couple of days I’ve been going around talking to mayors in Duluth and Two Harbors, Minn., the mayor of Champlain, the mayor of St. Paul, the mayor of Rochester, county commissioners, et cetera, trying to figure out how they can get access to the stimulus package and what they need. That seems much more productive than trying to listen to Rush Limbaugh or Bill O’Reilly and hear what they think about me. Actually, that was one of the nicest things that happened to me once I left the radio show — I stopped paying attention to them.

But if Franken doesn’t care about Limbaugh anymore, Republican National Committee Michael Steele has to. Steele beat a fast retreat, issuing a public apology after his post-CPAC comments that Limbaugh’s schtick is “incendiary” and “ugly.”

If words by Barack Obama’s chief of staff are any indicator, some of us can come out. As “liberals.” Ben Smith reports:

[At] concert hosted by the New Republic last night, Rahm Emanuel — amid a stream of praise for Rep. Barney Frank, also in attendance — embraced the word.

“[Frank] is — to all of us who are liberals — our congressman,” Emanuel said.

The usage is predated by Wonkette’s increasingly frequent use of the word “libtard,” which I choose to read as a reclamation of sorts.

Rep. Jim Ramstad Photo: Lauren Victoria Burke

GOP Congressman Jim Ramstad has asked President-elect Barack Obama’s advisors to consider naming him to lead the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) — and he’s enlisted top Democrats to help with his bid.

Ramstad, a Republican who is retiring this year after nine terms in Congress, approached Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) before Thanksgiving to discuss an appointment in the Obama administration. He would need support from Kennedy, the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, if Obama were to choose Ramstad to lead the $3.3 billion agency.

“Sen. Kennedy thinks very highly of Congressman Ramstad and feels that he is uniquely qualified to serve the country in this position,” a Kennedy spokesman said.

But Ramstad has also gotten support from allies in the House: Kennedy’s son, Democratic Rep. Patrick Kennedy, and Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.) have encouraged Obama’s senior advisers to make the appointment.

A Rhode Island Democrat, Kennedy has had two conversations about Ramstad with Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), Obama’s incoming chief of staff, and John Podesta, who is leading the transition team, a Congressional Democratic official familiar with the conversation said.

At an event last month at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., Kennedy introduced Ramstad to former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), who Obama likely will appoint to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

Kennedy jokingly introduced Ramstad to Daschle as the “next SAMHSA administrator,” a Congressional Democratic official said.

Although Ramstad’s name has been floated as the next “drug czar,” or head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Ramstad’s congressional allies believe that SAMHSA is a better fit and a more realistic possibility for the nine-term congressman.

The Kennedys and Ramstad have developed a close bond during the past few years borne from their experiences with addiction (Ramstad is Rep. Kennedy’s AA sponsor) and their work on legislation requiring insurance companies to provide the same coverage for mental illnesses as they do for physical illnesses. Ramstad and Kennedy  are chairmen of the House’s bipartisan Addiction, Treatment and Recovery Caucus.

In October, Congress approved Ramstad and Kennedy’s so-called mental health parity bill, which Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) initially championed before his untimely death in 2002. The bill was used as the vehicle to pass the $700 billion financial rescue package.

Ramstad may see less opposition as SAMHSA head than he would if named “drug czar.” While several interest groups oppose Ramstad as “drug czar,” sending a letter to Obama criticizing his opposition to needle exchange programs and medical marijuana, mental health and addiction advocates praised him.

“Appointing Jim Ramstad as SAMHSA director would raise the profile of addiction disorders within the agency,” Lizbet Boroughs, the deputy director of governmental relations at the American Psychiatric Association, said. “The past two administrators have been more mental health experts than addiction disorders.”

SAMHSA had not been decimated by budget cuts during the past decade or politicized. The biggest challenge is coordinating federal policy at the local level, Boroughs said.

Andrew Sperling, the director of legislative affairs at the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said Ramstad would be a “fantastic addition” to the agency.

Other advocates, however, had a more tepid reaction.

“It’s a mixed bag at best,” Bill Piper, the director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance, said. “On the one hand, heading SAMHSA would put him in a good position within the Administration to champion the cause of implementing ‘parity’ fully. And he would no doubt fight for higher overall levels of drug treatment spending and be able to build Republican support in Congress.”

“But at the end of the day the most important issue isn’t funding for treatment per se, but funding for quality treatment. For years Rep. Ramstad’s parity bills excluded methadone and other Opioid treatments proven by decades of research to be the most effective treatment for heroin addiction,” Nadelmann said. “This was a subject of dispute between him and Senator [Paul] Wellstone (who was the lead sponsor of the Senate version).”

Despite the buzz over Ramstad, his supporters acknowledged there are other candidates and that Obama is getting advice from other sources, including Mass. Gov. Deval Patrick, an early supporter of Obama’s. Patrick has worked to increase spending on programs to help children coping with mental illness.

“Ultimately people have this is the president’s pick, at the end of the day,” the Congressional source said. “A lot of people are advising Barack and he will take a lot of suggestions from a lot of people and make up his own mind.”

A spokesman for Ramstad did not return phone calls for comment.

Related: Up in smoke: Will Ramstad’s faith-based earmark hurt his chances to win drug czar post?

Jonathan E. Kaplan is the Center for Independent Media’s Washington correspondent.

24. Nicolas Sarkozy
President, France
Sarkozy’s chief ambition is to make France powerful again. And he’s found l’Américain to partner with. After Sarko’s rapturous meeting with Obama in July (“You must want a cigarette after that,” Maureen Dowd teased Obama), Mr. Pro-America became even more pro-Obama. (Key bonding point: They are both sons of immigrants who busted ethnic monopolies on power.) Sarkozy is poised to be to Obama as Blair was to Clinton and Bush–the first foreign leader consulted in an international crisis, the honored guest at the most lavish state dinners. One potential hitch: According to Haaretz, Sarko doesn’t especially like Obama’s plans for sitting down with Tehran.

RT stands in for another Blue Eyes (RIP)

As President-elect Obama moves to fill staff positions in his transition team and administration, locals with ties to his candidacy and a desire to move to Washington, D.C., may reasonably hold out hope of being tapped. One post that already got away from the Minnesota crowd is that of White House press secretary — Politico reports this morning that Obama has chosen campaign and Senate aide Robert Gibbs, who’s from Alabama, to fill that high-visibility vacancy. Gibbs, who served as communication director at Obama for America, beat out Bill Burton, the campaign’s national press secretary and a University of Minnesota alum. Burton made Blois Olson’s MinnPost list of Minnesotans with Obama job prospects this week.

Also on Olson’s list is Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, an early advocate of the draft-Obama movement whose line on an Obama administration post I traced back in June. Rybak’s background as a reporter got him cited at the Minneapolis Issues list this week as a possible Obama spokester, but his potential as a federal Housing and Urban Development pick is more frequently raised. Any D.C. job would likely pose a work conflict with Rybak’s rumored 2010 gubernatorial ambitions.

The news today that U.S. Rep. Rahm Emanuel will be Obama’s chief of staff means Minnesotans may want to take advantage of any ties they have to the Illinois congressman. One is Ashwin Madia, with whom Emanuel campaigned on a special trip to Minnesota last month. The two pols “are good friends and enjoyed campaigning together. They are both incredibly smart, hard-working individuals. Whether that translates into something more in the future is anyone’s guess,” Madia spokesperson Dan Pollock wrote in response to an e-mail inquiry this morning.

Meanwhile the Minnesotan with the biggest job dangled before him is Gov. Tim Pawlenty. No longer the subject of vice-presidential speculation now that McCain passed him over for colder pastures, Pawlenty has moved up in the world and now gets daily press mentions as a presidential prospect in 2012, when he’d likely reprise his rivalry with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. She gets the same mentions as Pawlenty, of course, and more. But unlike Pawlenty, who campaigned hard for McCain (and his own place on the ticket) in the weeks and months leading up to the Republican National Convention, Palin has already made a place for herself in the national media spotlight, where she’s paid her dues — if not her Neiman Marcus bills.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (Md.), Majority Whip James Clyburn (S.C.), and House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) have contributed thousands of dollars, held countless fundraisers and traveled across the country for Democratic candidates.

In Minnesota, Democratic leaders are campaigning hard for Ashwin Madia, as he vies for the open seat held by Rep. Jim Ramstad, who is retiring at year’s end.

Pelosi has contributed $14,000 from her campaign war chest and her political action committee to Madia’s effort, according to the latest FEC reports.

Hoyer has campaigned for Madia and has contributed $12,000; Clyburn has given $12,000; and Emanuel has campaigned, contributed $7,500, and raised money for Madia, too.

A recent poll conducted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which has spent more than $1.3 million to help Madia win, showed him leading by five points.

Stuart Rothenberg, the author of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Report, wrote that the race “now leans toward Madia … the race is still close, but the political environment is awful for Republicans and the DCCC is in big time for their nominee.”

Despite the communal effort by party leadership to increase the size of the Democratic majority, self-interest is at stake, too.

Pelosi, Hoyer, Clyburn and Emanuel are all campaigning hard to curry favor with future colleagues who will have a say in whether they remain Democratic leaders.

In the weeks after the election, Democrats will meet in Washington, D.C., and hold internal party elections (Republicans will hold their own elections, too). When Congress meets in early January, House members will vote to determine who will be Speaker of the House. The vote normally is split along party lines, so Pelosi will be reelected easily if all Democrats support her.

But leadership races are often contentious, revealing a party’s inner turmoil as well as a lawmaker’s political skills. So the allegiance of incoming freshmen can be crucial.

Perhaps no recent Congressional leader was better at the care and feeding of future members of Congress than former Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas), who campaigned tirelessly in 1994 for Republican candidates who eventually won.

He not only raised and contributed money to them, but also sent them care packages full of office supplies, toiletries and snacks. The loyalty he won from GOP candidates helped propel DeLay past then-Speaker Newt Gingrich’s favored candidate to become the majority whip.

In the case of today’s Democrats, the current leadership has worked well together during the past two years and the leadership team will remain in place during the 111th Congress. But leaders will face a big test in 2010, when Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), the Democratic Caucus chairman and fourth ranking member of leadership, reaches his two-term limit as caucus chair. It’s either up or out for Emanuel at that point.

Emanuel, a former senior aide to President Clinton before winning a seat in Congress in 2002, led the Democrats to victory in the 2006 mid-term elections as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

What Emanuel chooses to do after the 2010 midterm elections, as well as how he manages his relationship with a President Obama, could have far-reaching consequences for the party’s leadership. He normally chooses the most aggressive and ambitious course of action and has let reporters know that he wants to be the first Jewish Speaker of the House.

“Both Pelosi and Hoyer are same age, both love their jobs, and both could be there for another six years,” a Democratic lobbyist with close ties to House leaders said. “No question that if [Emanuel] stays he will be speaker. The question is whether he can wait.”

“He’s on a path to someday be speaker,” another Democratic lobbyist said. “It’s a question of what are the stepping stones along the way and how long will it take?”

With days to go before the 2008 election, speculation about the 2010 midterms and future party leadership might appear pointless given how much can change.

But leadership races determine who sets the party’s message and agenda in Washington, as well as who advises the Speaker and majority leader. So until the moment comes when Emanuel has to give up his post as Democratic Caucus chairman, he and the other House leaders are busy collecting chits and building new relationships with possible newcomers like Madia.

Jonathan E. Kaplan is the Center for Independent Media’s Washington correspondent.

U.S. Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., came to the Twin Cities today to support DFL congressional candidate Ashwin Madia in his bid to replace retiring Republican 3rd District U.S. Rep. Jim Ramstad with a Minneapolis fundraiser and a joint visit to Axonom, Inc., a small Edina technology firm.

The two pols discussed the need to reform health care to lessen businesses’ burden as well as the importance of education in building a skilled work force — a point Axonom CEO Clark Dircz stressed during an office tour he led. In a news conference afterward, Emanuel pitched a plan to make mandatory one year of post-secondary education.

But they could hardly ignore the current economic crisis, and Madia sketched a five-point economic plan that Emanuel duly applauded, lavishing praise on Madia as the sort of practical politician who would be welcomed in the House Democratic caucus, which Emanuel leads.

Emanuel and Madia make an interesting pair: Both are sons of immigrants with names that not everyone can spell and, after last week’s slams on Madia by Minnesota Republicans, they have both been called “carpetbagger.” In Emanuel’s case, the term was applied during an extremely rough 2002 campaign in which it took an all-faiths rally to silence harsh rhetoric many saw as anti-Semitic. In the Edina office building lobby after today’s event, Emanuel quietly counseled Madia on how to handle attacks that carry messages of racial or ethnic divisiveness.

Emanuel’s visit came on a day that Ramstad — speaking for himself as well as quoting from a statement by his predecessor, Bill Frenzel — said Madia and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee are conducting a campaign of “gutter politics” against state Rep. Erik Paulsen, the Republican candidate for Ramstad’s seat. Among what Ramstad characterized as “utter fabrications” was a DCCC flyer linking Paulsen to a Las Vegas strip-club event held by a political action committee that also donated to his campaign (Paulsen campaign video and MPR audio below). A new Paulsen ad has this for a theme: “Madia lies a lot.”

Here’s a three-minute highlight reel from today’s Madia-Emanuel news conference:

Paulsen campaign video of Ramstad press conference:

MPR audio of Ramstad press conference: