Al From in 1999 said the GOP was trying to steal their Third Way policies.

[madfloridian]

Al From in 1999 said the GOP was trying to steal their Third Way policies. Recently the DLC, the group in which he is a leader, acknowledged that their policies appeal more to Republicans anyway. So it really should not be surprising.

Who Owns the Third Way

Progressive political leaders created this movement to deal with new social and political questions posed by economic change and globalization. It seeks to strike a new balance between the imperatives of economic dynamism and social justice. This politics goes by different names in different countries. It's New Democrat in America, New Labour in Great Britain, and the New Middle in Germany. Whatever its national label, Third Way values, ideas, and approaches to governing are modernizing center-left politics around the globe. The Third Way uses innovative ideas and modern means to advance fundamental progressive principles.

The evidence is clear: Republicans are trying to steal our politics. They're not even being subtle about it. Two GOP groups, The Republican Main Street Partnership and the Republican Leadership Council, have sprung up explicitly to emulate the success of the DLC. The Republican Main Street Partnership is a group of moderate House Republicans led by Rep. Amo Houghton of New York -- one of a handful of Republicans who had the courage to vote against the articles of impeachment lodged against the President. But Houghton makes no bones about what his group is up to. In a recruitment letter to DLC supporters recently, he wrote: "The Republican Main Street Partnership was created early last year to mirror much of what the DLC has done ... and we are borrowing heavily from the DLC success story."

Then he said George Bush was trying to take their policies as well.

Then there's copycat GOP presidential candidate George W. Bush, the Texas governor, who is now the party's frontrunner for the 2000 nomination. All last fall during his gubernatorial re- election campaign, he traveled across the state in a bus with the words "opportunity" and "responsibility" plastered on the side. I call that New Democrat Lite.

He presented words by President Clinton to show just how the DLC's Third Way had influenced world policy, and to show that ownership of the Third Way belongs to them.

The President best summarized our progress in his speech to the DLC last December. "These words -- opportunity, responsibility, community -- came to identify and embody a new approach to government and politics, tying our oldest, most enduring values to the Information Age," he said. "We said we were New Democrats, and we called our approach the Third Way.

"These same ideas are reviving center-left political parties throughout the industrialized world as people everywhere struggle to put a human face on the global economy," the President continued. "And it all started with the DLC ... Today, less than 15 years after we started, the ideas pushed by the DLC are literally sweeping the world."

My thoughts are on this are pretty obvious. Why do the Republicans want to steal this groups's ideas if indeed they are truly Democratic ideals. Does make one wonder.

In fact in its argument to the IRS the DLC makes no secret it appeals to Republicans more than Democrats. No wonder they are trying to steal our ideas if that is true.

The IRS began auditing the DLC in 1999 and in 2002 revoked its exemption for 1997, 1998 and 1999 (all the years audited), hitting it with a $20,083 back tax bill. The government doesn't claim the DLC got involved in elections. Rather it cites the DLC's founding by Democrats; its training workshops held exclusively for Democrats; and From's stated goal of coming up with new centrist policies that would make "our party" the majority.

The DLC responds that its exclusive purpose is to develop and promote its "Third Way" agenda and that some causes it has lobbied for--e.g., welfare reform, fast-track approval of free-trade agreements--got more Republican than Democratic votes in Congress. The DLC also points to other issue-flavored (c)(4)s--Empower America, the Log Cabin Republicans and the Republican Main Street Partnership--whose founders are identified with one party. And it says the Democrat-only workshops ate up less than 5% of a $4 million annual budget while 70% went for publications available to the public.
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2006/1002/048.html?_requestid=5123

I have nothing against some of the policies espoused by The Third Way. It appears their policy talking points are used by nearly all of our Democrats. I just find it ironic that the DLC wondered why the Republicans were trying to steal the ideas of one of their think tank arms....especially if they are now claiming the ideas appeal more to Republicans anyway. :shrug:

The Third Way

Some interesting conversation between the founders of the Third Way that same year, 1999, apparently the year it was going global.

The Third Way goes Global

On April 25 after the conclusion of the NATO summit in Washington, President Clinton, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, Italian Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema, and Netherlands Prime Minister Wim Kok gathered at the National Press Club for an extaordinary public colloquy on the international Third Way political movement. The forum, sponsored by the Democratic Leadership Council, was the latest in a series of conversations on Third Way politics among world leaders that began in November 1997 at Chequers, the British prime minister's country estate, and continued last year at a private meeting at the White House and a public symposium at New York University.

Tony Blair's words seemed rather poignant. I found myself thinking "what if" he had not gone along in 2002 with Bush's invasion of Iraq. What if Bill Clinton, also at the meeting...had spoken out against that invasion instead of supporting it.

Blair:

Prime Minister Blair: Gerhard Schroeder was saying to me on the way in, "Look, I haven't found the first two ways yet, so you tell me where the third one is!" (Laughter.)

This is how I define the Third Way. The Old Left tried to resist change. And (our parties) became associated with high taxes, (special) interests, big government. We were often perceived as more worried about the rights of those committing crimes than (about) those people that were victims of it, and basically (we) didn't appear to have answers to problems of the future. The New Right thought the solution to everything was just get rid of government And often, I think, (it was) indifferent to what was actually breaking apart the bonds of society. (Our parties of the) center and center-left a voyage of rediscovery. I believe what we're really, really about is the politics of community, opportunity, responsibility.

Maybe they began to ignore the Old Left a little too much. Many Old Left knew Iraq was no danger. How different things would have been now if they had not gone along with Bush.

[PATRICK]

1. A general comment

I made long ago. If you succeed in tactics that are neutral, questionable, immoral or anything else close to the non-democratic interest of the RW or GOP it will be easily adopted and turned against you by the EXPERTS. This goes for more than the DLC whose fundamentla mental flaw in this concern is astronomical.
Politics can be math, but the character of the two parties does not mean that the best solution is everyone playing the same game and surrendering their unassailable natural base.

Democrats have to get it through their heads that they are stuck with people, civil society, progress, liberalism and a host of strengths and weaknesses associated with that. Any move to get tricky or dirty or filled with money like the "winners" is suicidally fraught with danger like a person learning a card counting system going to Las Vegas. Those places the GOP cannot go or can only go on a fraudulent basis such as large numbers of sane, enthusiastic crowds, serving public interests, curbing wealth and criminal activities of the same are indicative of their own character and trap. Both sides invade, but one should not get idiotically dogmatic or pleased about guiving up one's strength in the process. Criminal minds under constant siege by the masses understand this and will escalate lying and oppression along with money gilded afforts to "steal" Dem strategies.

[madfloridian]

3. Good statement you made about Democrats. We need to be who we are...

for people and all that goes along with it. And not be apologetic for it.

"Democrats have to get it through their heads that they are stuck with people, civil society, progress, liberalism and a host of strengths and weaknesses associated with that. "

[thethinker]

2. OK

It appears to me that the Third Way have been copying the republicans since day one. Now they accuse the republicans of copying their ideas. Give me a break.

Their idea of the perfect country is Republican and Republican Lite.

[madfloridian]

4. It's a little strange to take in, isn't it?

All copying each other's ideas and leaving the Old Left hanging out to dry.

[Jim Sagle]

5. Who steals Third Way, steals a buncha shit.

[TahitiNut]

6. After visiting From's Cloud-Cuckoo-Land ... I have just one question:

If the "Third Way" is the best thing for America, then who gives a flying fuck WHO does it?

I mean... fer krissakes! Does it take an anti-partisan independent like me to call "Bullshit!" on this kind of crap from From? As a American, I'd be overjoyed if the 'right' was only as bad as the DLC ... and some semblance of balance were returned to our body politic. The fascists on the right have gained far, far too much power.

[madfloridian]

7. Well, remember what Al From said about minorities and unions in 1995?

This has been going on so very long. It's no wonder they like things the way they are. We will have to fight to get back to where we should be as Democrats...

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/818

a long-term majority will never be created around the interests represented by Jesse and the labor unions

He said more about Clinton at that time. They were going to keep him in line, too.

[jackbourassa]

8. What you must understand...

...is that the DLC take credit for things they had absolutely nothing to do with. The DLC will declare victory even when they lose.

That's why they are dangerous to us Democrats politically speaking. Because they deal in sound bites and newspaper clips and not in reality. You'd hope that someone somewhere within the party would realize that these people are really dragging us down and are borderline delusional. There really is no consistency to their argument, philosophy or worldview. Only an obnoxious mantra of superiority that is never bourne out when examined more closely.

It's funny that you bring up From's quote about Jesse Jackson and the Unions in 1995. Now juxtapose that with what From said during the Congressional debate over Tort Reform in 2004. He explained that Democrats should oppose the measure because to support it would tell an important ally (in this case the Trial Lawyers) that we as a party could not be counted on to deliver for them. I suppose that in Al From's little world it is better to be aligned with trial lawyers than workers and African Americans, two traditional allies to the Democratic Party. But then again, trial lawyers probably donate more money to From and the DLC.

I believe this should give you a real understanding of what their true motivation is.