How the DLC Does It

[Octafish]

Important history to remember.

How the DLC Does It

ROBERT DREYFUSS
The American Prospect, DECEMBER 19, 2001

EXCERPT...

A Business-Led Party

SNIP...

Once, the Reverend Jesse Jackson disparaged the DLC as "Democrats for the Leisure Class." But no one should underestimate the DLC's role in remaking the Democratic Party. Disciplined and single-minded, working tirelessly to forge alliances between individual Democratic elected officials and business groups, zealously promoting the political fortunes of their stars, and publishing a dizzying array of white papers and policy proposals, the DLC has given strategic coherence to what otherwise would have remained an inchoate tendency within the party. It has become a forum within which like-minded pro-business Democrats can share ideas, endorse one another, and commiserate about the persistence of the Old Guard.

SNIP...

One by one, Fortune 500 corporate backers saw the DLC as a good investment. By 1990 major firms like AT&T and Philip Morris were important donors. Indeed, according to Reinventing Democrats, Kenneth S. Baer's history of the DLC, Al From used the organization's fundraising prowess as blandishment to attract an ambitious young Arkansas governor to replace Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia as DLC chairman. Drawing heavily on internal memos written by From, Bruce Reed, and other DLCers, Baer says that the DLC offered Clinton not only a national platform for his presidential aspirations but "entree into the Washington and New York fundraising communities." Early in the 1992 primaries, writes Baer, "financially, Clinton's key Wall Street support was almost exclusively DLC-based," especially at firms like New York's Goldman, Sachs.

The DLC's investment in Clinton paid off, of course, after the 1992 election. Not only did the DLC bask in its status as idea factory and influence broker for the White House, but it also reaped immediate financial rewards. One month after the election, Clinton headlined a fundraising dinner for the DLC that drew 2,200 to Washington's Union Station, where tables went for $15,000 apiece. Corporate officials and lobbyists were lined up to meet the new White House occupant, including 139 trade associations, law firms, and companies who kicked in more than $2 million, for a total of $3.3 million raised in a single evening. The DLC-PPI's revenues climbed steadily upward, reaching $5 million in 1996 and, according to its most recent available tax returns, $6.3 million for 1999. "Our revenues for 2000 will probably end up around $7.2 million," says Chuck Alston, the DLC's executive director.

While the DLC will not formally disclose its sources of contributions and dues, the full array of its corporate supporters is contained in the program from its annual fall dinner last October, a gala salute to Lieberman that was held at the National Building Museum in Washington. Five tiers of donors are evident: the Board of Advisers, the Policy Roundtable, the Executive Council, the Board of Trustees, and an ad hoc group called the Event Committee--and companies are placed in each tier depending on the size of their check. For $5,000, 180 companies, lobbying firms, and individuals found themselves on the DLC's board of advisers, including British Petroleum, Boeing, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Coca-Cola, Dell, Eli Lilly, Federal Express, Glaxo Wellcome, Intel, Motorola, U.S. Tobacco, Union Carbide, and Xerox, along with trade associations ranging from the American Association of Health Plans to the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. For $10,000, another 85 corporations signed on as the DLC's policy roundtable, including AOL, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Citigroup, Dow, GE, IBM, Oracle, UBS PacifiCare, PaineWebber, Pfizer, Pharmacia and Upjohn, and TRW.

And for $25,000, 28 giant companies found their way onto the DLC's executive council, including Aetna, AT&T, American Airlines, AIG, BellSouth, Chevron, DuPont, Enron, IBM, Merck and Company, Microsoft, Philip Morris, Texaco, and Verizon Communications. Few, if any, of these corporations would be seen as leaning Democratic, of course, but here and there are some real surprises. One member of the DLC's executive council is none other than Koch Industries, the privately held, Kansas-based oil company whose namesake family members are avatars of the far right, having helped to found archconservative institutions like the Cato Institute and Citizens for a Sound Economy. Not only that, but two Koch executives, Richard Fink and Robert P. Hall III, are listed as members of the board of trustees and the event committee, respectively--meaning that they gave significantly more than $25,000.

CONTINUED...

http://prospect.org/article/how-dlc-does-it

Open minded Democrats today must ask: Why did Clinton Foundation grab the DLC's files after the organization disbanded?

[haikugal]

1. Must not forget! Thanks! K&R!!

[KoKo]

2. "The DLC sought for a time to identify itself with Obama's message and his campaign..."

From the second link article:

The DLC sought for a time to identify itself with Obama's message and his campaign, but found itself relatively unwelcome there and the final move cements its place as a central force in Clintonism and the Clinton historical record.

The move may also resolve any debt the organization was coping with, and allow it to fold cleanly.

[tk2kewl]

3. k&r

[bobthedrummer]

4. Good question, Sir-that final OP sentence. K&R n/t

[UglyGreed]

5. This is why

I can not support Hillary.

[Betty Karlson]

6. Why did the Clinton foundation grab the DLC files?

Because Clinton (as evidenced by her server storage) doesn't bother with propriety, only with what happens to be most convenient in the moment itself, consequences be damned? Consequences are for common people and superpredators, ammiright?

[Wilms]

7. ^

[amborin]

8. The DLC remains "a central force in Clintonism;" of and for Big Business

[PufPuf23]

9. Thank you.

The DLC was in part form to take the wind out of Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition.

Ron Dellums, Maxine Waters, and Bernie Sanders were among the six founders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

from wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Progressive_Caucus

Background[edit]

The CPC is committed to government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Their policy agenda is rooted in four core principles: (1) fighting for economic justice and security in the U.S. and global economies; (2) protecting and preserving civil rights and civil liberties; (3) promoting global peace and security; and (4) strengthening environmental protection and energy independence. Their fundamental fairness plan reflects national priorities that are consistent with the values, needs, and hopes of all Americans, not just the powerful and the privileged. Accordingly, the CPC also advocates "universal access to affordable, high quality healthcare", fair trade agreements, living wage laws, the right of all workers to organize into labor unions and engage in collective bargaining, the abolition of the USA PATRIOT Act, the legalization of same-sex marriage, US participation in international treaties such as the climate change related Kyoto Accords, strict campaign finance reform laws, a crackdown on corporate welfare and influence, an increase in income tax rates on upper-middle and upper class households, tax cuts for the poor, and an increase in welfare spending by the federal government.[8]

Legislative history[edit]

The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) was established in 1991 by six members of the United States House of Representatives: U.S. Representatives Ron Dellums (D-CA), Lane Evans (D-IL), Thomas Andrews (D-ME), Peter DeFazio (D-OR), Maxine Waters (D-CA), and Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Additional House Members joined soon thereafter, including Major Owens (D-NY), Nydia Velázquez (D-NY), David Bonior (D-MI), Bob Filner (D-CA), Barney Frank (D-MA), Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), Jim McDermott (D-WA), Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Patsy Mink (D-HI), George Miller (D-CA), Pete Stark (D-CA), John Olver (D-MA), Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), and Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). Then-U.S. Representative Bernie Sanders was the convener and first CPC Chairman. Bill Goold served as Staff Coordinator for the Progressive Caucus in its early years until 1998.

The founding CPC members were concerned about the economic hardship imposed by the deepening recession, and the growing inequality brought about by the timidity of the Democratic Party response in the early 1990s. More importantly, on January 3, 1995 at a standing room only news conference on Capitol Hill, they were the first group inside Congress to chart a detailed, comprehensive legislative alternative to U.S. Speaker Newt Gingrich and the Republican Contract with America, which they termed "the most regressive tax proposals and reactionary social legislation the Congress had before it in 70 years." The CPC's ambitious agenda was framed as "The Progressive Promise: Fairness."

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The DLC is the anti-thesis of the CPC.

The CPC supports the goals of the liberal and progressive factions of Democratic Party; and what were the goals of the Democratic Party until the New Democrats / DLC / neo-liberals took control of the Democratic Party during the Bill Clinton years.

What POTUS candidate is CPC (and a founder)?: Bernie Sanders

What POTUS candidate is not and never has been a member of CPC and has changed policy on some issues (same sex marriage for example) and carries the torch for DLC-style policy and appointments? Hillary Clinton.

[bobthedrummer]

10. Spot on....

[ChiciB1]

11. I'm Seeing So Many Of This Kind Of Post Today And Now I'm Pretty

certain... THERE WILL BE A REVOLUTION, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!