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Too many Democrats too obligated to big money to speak for the people now.
The party started taking corporate money in the late 80s so they did not have to take stands for the people. Once the obligation is there, change is very hard.
Since the late 80s the party has openly shoved its left aside. And yet...
they fully expect us to forget all about that and in the famous words of Bill Clinton..."fall in line".
He said it was okay for us to "fall in love" with our candidates, but then we were to do what was expected of us at the end.
There's been open declaration over and over of how they did not need the left anymore. They said they were getting enough corporate money, and they did not have to stand for things that might cause them to lose. They had enough money that they did not have to worry about the needs of the people who had been the usual constituents of the party. They had theirs. They didn't need us.
But now they do. Funny how that happens during every primary, every election. They push us aside until they need us, then they put us on a huge freaking guilt trip.
If the party loses they drag out the trite stuff about how they got too partisan, about how the left failed to vote. Any excuse except what really happened.
It is not just supposition on my part, the leaders who took us in the direction of big money said so in their very own words.
Simon Rosenberg 2001:
SNIP..."Simon Rosenberg, the former field director for the DLC who directs the New Democrat Network, a spin-off political action committee, says, "We're trying to raise money to help them lessen their reliance on traditional interest groups in the Democratic Party. In that way," he adds, "they are ideologically freed, frankly, from taking positions that make it difficult for Democrats to win."
..... Rob Shapiro, the DLC VP at the time, and a Clinton advisor, spoke clearly about their purpose.
What we've done in the Democratic Party," explains institute Vice President Rob Shapiro, a Clinton economic adviser, "is an intellectual leveraged buyout." The DLC, presumably, is acting as arbitrageur, selling off unprofitable mind-sets to produce a lean and efficient philosophy for the "New Democrat," as DLCers call their slick bimonthly magazine.
These folks who wanted to be beholden to big money rather than stand for things that were good for the people of the party said openly they were going to take over the party.
Their own words:
To give you a sense of how sprawling From’s legacy actually is, consider the following. Bill Clinton chaired the From’s organization, the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) and used it as a platform to ascend to the Presidency in 1992. His wife Hillary is a DLC proponent. Al Gore and Joe Biden were DLCers. Barack Obama is quietly an adherent to the “New Democrat” philosophy crafted by From, so are most of the people in his cabinet, and the bulk of the Senate Democrats and House Democratic leaders. From 2007–2011, the New Democrats were the swing bloc in the U.S. House of Representatives, authoring legislation on bailouts and financial regulation of derivatives. And given how Democrats still revere Clinton, so are most Democratic voters, at this point. The DLC no longer exists, but has been folded into the Clinton’s mega-foundation, the Clinton Global Initiative, a convening point for the world’s global elite that wants to, or purports to want to, do good. In other words, it’s Al From’s Democratic Party, we just live here.
How they got started:
Recruiting Bill Clinton
We discovered that we were losing because middle-class voters, voters at the heart of the electorate, had voted Republican in 1988 by a 5-4 margin. The reason was that they did not trust Democrats to handle the issues they cared about most. In a Time magazine survey a week before the election, voters said that Republicans would do a better job than Democrats of maintaining a strong defense by 65–22; of keeping the economy strong by 55–33; of keeping inflation under control by 51–29; and, of curbing crime by 49–32. Those were the issues that drove presidential elections, and until the perception on them changed, Democrats simply were not going to be competitive.
Armed with this knowledge, we launched a four-part strategy to change the Democratic Party.
In other words they wanted to be more like the Republican Party so they could win, they thought.
A little after four o’clock on the afternoon of April 6, 1989, I walked into the office of Governor Bill Clinton on the second floor of the Arkansas State Capitol in Little Rock.
“I’ve got a deal for you,” I told Clinton after a few minutes of political chitchat. “If you agree to become chairman of the DLC, we’ll pay for your travel around the country, we’ll work together on an agenda, and I think you’ll be president one day and we’ll both be important.” With that proposition, Clinton agreed to become chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council, and our partnership was born. With Clinton as its leader, the New Democrat movement that sprung from the DLC over the next decade would change the course of the Democratic Party in the United States and of progressive center-left parties around the world.
.....Clinton looked at the memo and then said, “If I don’t run for reelection, then I’m going to have to make at least $100,000 a year.” A hundred thousand a year probably seemed like a lot of money for Clinton in 1990; his gubernatorial salary was just $35,000 a year—among the lowest of all governors. And if he left the governor’s mansion—he used to quip that he spent most of his life in public housing—he would have had to pay for a place to live for the first time since he was out of office in 1981 and 1982. I told Clinton that I’d be delighted to pay him $100,000 a year to be a full-time chairman of the DLC.
.....I believe you are the right person for the DLC job—and the DLC job is the right job for you. We have the opportunity to redefine the Democratic Party during the next two years. If our efforts lead to a presidential candidacy—whether for you or someone else—we can take over the party, as well.
Yesterday a former president whose wife is running for president campaigned in about 4 polling places in Massachusetts. Last I heard the powers that be in MA and the party were maybe going to look at it if they have time.
Bernie Sanders has done amazingly well in a campaign in which the DNC is supporting his opponent openly. His fundraising is record-breaking, with many donors still left to tap again for funds.
He is not obligated to big money, it is not like a chain pulling him down.
He can stand for the people while others with the corporate obligations can not.
40 replies
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"We're trying to raise money to help them lessen their reliance on traditional interest groups in the Democratic Party."
they're just leasing it to us
Another great post Mad! 
Hope things are still going well there.
You are so right, KoKo
