Who Gets the Credit?

Politicians and pundits are trying to figure out who will get the credit should the GOP have a really good day on Nov. 2. I'll give you my answer in the minute:

Who will be the Republican Rahm Emanuel in 2010?

In 2006, Emanuel was acclaimed as the architect of Democrats’ sweep to power in the House and Senate. It helped launch him toward a job as President Obama’s chief of staff, which he has since vacated for a run at mayor of Chicago.

Now, Republicans look poised to take back the House, and possibly the Senate. GOP politicians and operatives demur when asked who will get credit for a big win on Nov. 2. But that doesn’t mean they’re not thinking about whose political star might be launched after a successful election.

The top names mentioned by the more than two dozen political insiders – most of them Republicans – were Karl Rove, Haley Barbour and Ed Gillespie, overshadowing the heads of the campaign committees, Texas Rep. Pete Sessions and Texas Sen. John Cornyn. Sessions and Cornyn were nonetheless generally described as having redeemed themselves after shaky starts to the cycle.

“My hunch is it’s going to be more the Eds, the Karls, the Haleys than the people at the party committees themselves, in part because the people at the committees are not generally known in the public,” said Ari Fleischer, a former White House press secretary for President George W. Bush.

In my book it's not a politician or political activist that will deserve the credit for a big GOP win, but people like Rick Santelli, the CNBC financial reporter whose rant back on February 19, 2009 began the Tea Party movement.  Credit also has to go to the millions of voters, many of whom had not previously been politically active, who took to the streets and are forcing the GOP to listen to their demands for smaller government.

In my book, they're the ones who made this possible.