Kudos to the DLC on their article: "Money Should Not Talk"

[flpoljunkie]

Let's hope the Democratic leadership will indeed have the courage to take the opportunity provided by the Abramoff scandal to champion genuine lobbying and campaign finance reform.

http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=131&subid=192&contentid=253671

Thus, the broader Democratic reform agenda should encompass a real effort to promote systemic campaign finance reform, aimed ultimately at both expenditure limits and partial or complete public financing, in order to sever the link between lobbyists and campaign contributions.

Yes, we know that in Washington the conventional wisdom holds that campaign finance reform is a "non-starter," and that polls show the public doesn't much like public financing of campaigns. But around the country, in a number of states (most recently scandal-plagued Connecticut), voters are getting wise to the problem and supporting public financing options. It's the essence of political leadership to change public opinion, not just echo it, and today's scandals offer Democrats in particular a unique opportunity to connect the dots and generate support for genuine change.

The need for a new dialogue on campaign finance reform is perhaps best illustrated by the dog-that-hasn't-barked during the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of John Roberts and (now) Samuel Alito: a serious examination of prospective Justice's views on the horribly unfortunate Supreme Court ruling in Buckley v. Valeo (whose 30th anniversary is coming up on January 30), which held that campaign contributions represented a form of political speech deserving the highest level of protection under the First Amendment. Or, to put it more colloquially, the Court ruled that "money talks." It shouldn't.

With or without constitutional change in this area, any genuine reformers, and certainly Democrats who want to champion reform, need to constantly remind voters that a system that makes elected officials dependent on shaking the money tree every day is a system that will always and inevitably produce ethical abuses and "pay-for-play" shakedown scams that distort public policy on behalf of privileged special interests. Money won't stop talking in Washington until we find a way to let the national interest speak much louder. That begins with robust lobbying reform, but must extend to all the factors of the system that give special interests more than their share of attention from public officials.

[acmejack]

1. Extremely rare to see anything come out of the DLC with reading.

They still suck and have no place within the party.

[Toots]

2. For once the DLC has said something intelligent

Now the DNC needs to get on the boat as well. Get the money out of politics or else go get drunk and forget about living in a decent country.

[cascadiance]

10. We have to be careful and look at them with a fine toothed comb...

The problems we've had with past attempts at campaign finance reform is that any decent attempts at fixing the system are compromised to the point that they really don't tackle or solve the problem at all, just shift it someplace else, and hope that the public thinks that this complicated legislation (for which they, the public, don't understand at all) makes it look like they're doing something about it, when they aren't.

That's why it's not surprising that the DLC is going to take a public stance to state that they are for fixing the very problem they are most criticized for in the Democratic problem, but perhaps behind the scenes, they are just looking to do the same thing over again that's happened in the past without much substance to the effort and preserving the status quo that they "thrive" under.

The devil is in the details, and I for one, will be certainly encouraged if they do a paradigm shift back towards being a good organization that looks to help the representation of all of the rest of us, but I also will be scrutinizing them very carefully for duplicitnous. I recommend you all do the same.

[Warren Stupidity]

3. Yeah they aint wrong in every issue. nt.

[flpoljunkie]

4. Let's see what the Dem leadership actually proposes. Frankly, I was

surprised , but encouraged, to read this from the DLC. Let's hope they mean it and the Democratic leadership uses the Abramoff scandal to clean up the way business is done in Washington--where the special interests, rather than the public interests--reign supreme.

[Warren Stupidity]

5. They aren't stupid.

They have to be the DLC not the Zell Miller Leadership Council. So on quite a few issues they hold positions that are at least moderate. They are however the corporate-kleptocracy faction within the Democratic Party.

[flpoljunkie]

6. I share your concerns, which makes me surprised DLC wrote this, and

wonder if they really mean it.

[leesa]

7. Talk is cheap.

[flpoljunkie]

8. I totally agree with you.

[Douglas Carpenter]

9. I would be curious if the DLC actually pushes this issue

considering they have had a lot to do with radically increasing the role of money in politics.

At the core of their ideology is a religious like devotion to neoliberal economic theory which is Orwellianly called "free trade". When they speak of "centrism" they are not referring to social issues like gay marriage, abortion or gun control-in other words wedge issues that do sometimes divide working class voters from and within the Democratic Party. "Centrism" and "moderate" in their language means a more pro-corporate world view. Views that are frequently very unpopular with the historic working class constituency of the Democratic Party.

I suspect that statements like this from the DLC are more a PR exercise than anything else.

___________________
Borrowed from:
LynnTheDem

a super-majority of Americans are liberal in all but name

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051107/alterman

Public opinion polls show that the majority of Americans embrace liberal rather than conservative positions...
http://www.poppolitics.com/articles/2002-04-16-liberal.shtml

The vast majority of Americans are looking for more social support, not less...
http://www.prospect.org/print/V12/7/borosage-r.html

http://people.umass.edu/mmorgan/commstudy.html

[Clarkie1]

11. Bravo! Recommended!

Now let's put pressure on our elected officials to put some action behind the words and let them know we support these types of reforms!

[flpoljunkie]

12. Yes, let's hold their feet to the fire!

[enki23]

13. new definition of irony

.