NY Times: "The Centrists Didn't Hold. The DLC's Fading Influence Good

[muntrv]

For The Entire Democratic Party."

Op-Ed Contributor
The Centrists Didn’t Hold


By NOAM SCHEIBER
Published: July 28, 2007
Washington

NOT very long ago, the Democratic Leadership Council was a maker of presidents — or, at least, the maker of a president. In 1991, Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas, then the council’s chairman, elucidated the “New Democrat” ethos and previewed the themes of his presidential candidacy (“opportunity, responsibility, community”) with a speech at the centrist group’s annual conference. “It became the blueprint for my campaign message,” Mr. Clinton later wrote in his autobiography. He added, “By embracing ideas and values that were both liberal and conservative, it made voters who had not supported Democratic presidential candidates in years listen to our message.”

But few headlines will be made this weekend at the council’s “National Conversation” in Nashville. The next president of the United States almost certainly won’t be there. Not only are Democratic front-runners like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama planning to skip the conference, but so are the Bill Richardsons and Chris Dodds of the field. That’s probably a good move for the candidates, as the council has become radioactive among Democratic primary voters. But the Democratic Leadership Council’s fading influence is also good news for the entire party.




http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/28/opinion/28scheiber.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

[Mass]

1. The DLC must be really low if TNR editors are saying so.

The DLC is probably the best constituancy of TNR.

[Tatiana]

2. Great example:

Take, for example, the law passed by Congress in 2005 that makes it harder for ordinary people to declare bankruptcy. The measure’s only obvious beneficiary was the credit-card industry, and most Democrats opposed it. One main exception was a coalition of House members allied with the council. In an implicit rebuke to their Democratic colleagues, these New Democrats declared their support for the bill “as champions of both personal and fiscal responsibility.”

Supporting measures like this is why the DLC has fallen out of favor with Democrats. More people realize they are out of touch with the majority of the American public. Good riddance, I say.

[aquart]

5. Good riddance to bad rubbish. I say.

[The Backlash Cometh]

24. What bastards.

What have they done lately to help the employees of those corporations improve their financial stability so they can ensure that they remain fiscally responsible? Not much.

[Richard Steele]

3. The DLC didn't make Bill Clinton- he made the DLC.

The man has serious political CHARISMA, like few candidates
ever do. He didn't need the DLC; he would have won under almost
any circumstances.

[aquart]

4. It's good news for me. Centrist, my ass.

[mitchum]

6. About fucking time (n/t)

[seemslikeadream]

7. Go back to the Republican Party if they'll have ya

[Robbien]

8. They are skipping the conference on purpose

in order to be able to say they are not DLCers when they try to get primary votes. Heck, I wouldn't put it past them to set up the conference on purpose in order to not attend and use that fact in their campaigns.

Why else would the DLC hold the conference where for the first time in its history the top DLCers refuse to attend?

[AtomicKitten]

10. Both Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004 skipped the DLC to-dos before the primary

and, once nominated, both spoke before the DLC.

This is nothing new.

[Robbien]

12. Yep, this article is just a propaganda piece. The DLC is just fine

They may be calling themselves New Dems, or BlueDogs, or ThirdWay. But they are still there and still strong.

Didn't the New Dems just piss us off today by being all DLC-like when they joined with GOPers to stop the bill for medical marijuana?

[AtomicKitten]

14. an interesting take on what I wrote

the point of which seems to have escaped you ....

I merely pointed out that this shuck and jive maneuver has been done before.

[bread_and_roses]

22. What???? I missed this? Is there a thread? (n/t)

[Individualist]

25. Absolutely

The article is merely a NYT effort to throw up a smokescreen to provide cover for DLC's agenda.

[mod mom]

23. Gore broke away from the DLC during the 2000 campaign to become a populist.

This switch lead to the Gore WIN in 2000, but his former colleagues at the DLC do not acknowledge Gore's win-instead they blame his "loss" on his shift away from the DLC toward a populist platform:

Strange Theory on Why Gore Lost



The so-called Democratic Leadership Council has decided that Al Gore should have acted more like a Republican in order to win the 2000 presidential electoral college vote in addition to his nationwide popular vote victory. This strange finding has drawn some attention, including coverage by the Associated Press and the Environmental News Service -- we have a few excerpts from their reports for you here.
Al Gore, the self-styled environmental candidate in the 2000 Presidential election, lost his bid for the White House because he campaigned on an outdated "populist" platform that was too liberal for most Americans, according to a new report drafted by the Democratic Leadership Council.

The 40-page report, titled "Why Gore Lost, And How Democrats Can Come Back," concludes that the Democratic Party must move towards the political right -- towards the Republicans -- if it wants to regain control of Congress in 2002 and the White House in 2004.

Al From, the DLC's founder and CEO, opened a freewheeling discussion forum by arguing that Democrat Al Gore made a huge tactical mistake by continually emphasizing that he would "fight for the people and not the powerful" as the nation's first president of the 21st Century.

-snip

http://www.progress.org/goredlc2.htm

[AtomicKitten]

35. not my point

which was that both Gore and Kerry avoided DLC clam bakes before the primary election, and then both spoke before the DLC as the nominee. The post I responded to suggested this is unchartered strategy this election, and I gave it a historical perspective to dispel that myth.

That's my point. Simple. Succinct. Accurate.

And apparently a springboard to jettison off subject.

[MisterP]

19. heck, Hillary, Obama, and TNR are all DLC members!

[dysfunctional press]

33. tnr?

:shrug:

[Cha]

36. FYI..

the new republic..a dlc rag.

[KaptBunnyPants]

37. Obama is not a member of the DLC.

“I am not currently, nor have I ever been, a member of the DLC,” said Obama.
http://www.blackcommentator.com/48/48_cover.html

[Elwood P Dowd]

9. I will drink to that

:toast:

[Auntie Bush]

11. tap or bottled?

[ProSense]

13. Two good pieces: Death of Triangulation? and Village Bipartisan Block Party

The Death of Triangulation?

The Village Bipartisan Block Party...Somewhere a new well of stupidity has been opened

[AtomicKitten]

15. never mind - you don't have room in your sig line

[ProSense]

16. deleted. n/t

[IChing]

17. Harold Ford jr. is pissed.

[guruoo]

20. My fellow TN Dems can't say they were never

warned about Harold.

[cynatnite]

21. I sure would have preferred him over that jackass Corker we've got now n/t

[guruoo]

26. I was thinking of the primary

When it came down to Harold or Corker, I voted for Harold too -begrudgingly

[Individualist]

28. Given the choice between a democrat who voted for torture, a republican, or an independent

who had no chance of winning, I voted for the independent. No one who enables torture would ever get my vote - not then, not now, NOT EVER!

[cynatnite]

29. And we got a torture supporting oil loving criminal who cheerleads the war...

who is repuke all the way.

Thanks to your stances...it took away from Ford which helped that asshole Corker who will enable torture at every opportunity.

[Individualist]

30. "a torture supporting, oil loving criminal who cheerleads the war..."

That's a perfect description of Voted For Torture Ford.

"...it took away from Ford.." Save the attempted browbeating, overused talking points for the uninformed.

Once again, NO ONE WHO VOTED FOR TORTURE will ever get my vote or support.

[in_cog_ni_to]

18. Thank G-D! They ruined our party just as the religious fundies have ruined the repuke party!

While most in the repuke party embrace the fundie wacko nut job crap and welcome them dictating policy, I don't believe the majority of Democrats are the 'moderate sensible center' types. I know I'm not. Never have been either. It's time to get back to our PROUD LIBERAL ROOTS....as far left as it takes us.

[Exiled in America]

27. Propaganda, pure and simple. Whatever their name, the "centrist" fuckheads are alive and well.

[Elidor]

31. Indeed

Anyone who thinks their malign influence over party members is over is delusional.

[WinkyDink]

32. The literary allusion:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of "Spiritus Mundi"
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?


-- William Butler Yeats, "The Second Coming"

[Vidar]

34. I'd like to believe it, but the Beast still lives.