If Dean wins, what should he do about the DLC?

[ButterflyBlood]

I think that aside from cleaning up the mess Bush left, priority #1 should be to destroy the DLC. Dean in the White House will prove how worthless and irrelevant they are. All we need to do then is bankrupt them.

[jpgray]

1. Convert it, don't destroy it

BIG tent, remember? They can't say "screw you Dean," they will get behind him and get him votes. What matters to the DLC is winning elections, they currently believe you need to run as a centrist--social liberal, fiscal conservative, tough on foreign policy. If Dean wins, as I believe he will, their theory is bunk and they lose power and influence. So they will either go along for the ride in a liberal renaissance or they will become obsolete.

Either way, good news.

[w4rma]

2. I agree

IMHO, the current DLC is NOT pro-buisness or pro-competition. The current DLC is not being financed by small buisnesses, but is instead being financed by the their big-buisness/sometimes robber baron competitors. The DLC needs to reformed. Small buisnesses need a lobbying group and the DLC would be just fine for that and it would be something that many Dems wouldn't mind working with and talking about in positive terms.

Small buisnesses are gobbled up by deep pocketed big buisnesses. So the same folks who are already in buisness are staying in buisness and can do everything wrong and stay in buisness while small buisness owners build thier buisnesses up to a point and then their bigger competitor buys them out. These same large buisnesses spend millions to lobby Congress for laws that help gain them an advantage over their smaller competitors. These same large buisnesses force states into bidding wars on how much less to tax them while their smaller competitors are getting no tax breaks. Notice that Enron is still in buisness and will likely stay in buisness after a name change.

[thom1102]

11. See this is what I find perplexing...

Dean is socially liberal, fiscally Conservative, and tough on foreign policy. Just because the man doesn't think the war in Iraq was right doesn't make him a wimp in the foreign policy arena. That said, why isn't the DLC lining up to support him?

[polpilot]

3. The DLC 'crew', like Chimpy & Co., have destroyed themselves. It's

time to sit back and watch it implode.

Dean '04

[Merlin]

4. The DLC is all about money.

Its original funding came from companies who wanted to suck up to Sam Nunn when he was head of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Nunn had a multitude of contacts in the Pentagon who would do his bidding--or rather pick the bidder he asked them to pick--when it came to defense contracts.

With the Dems out of power, the DLC is a shell of its former self. It has been bought--essentially--by Lieberman who props it up with contributions from companies and professions beholden to him--such as the accounting and financial services industries.

When we get back in power, there will be new opportunities in the party for Al From to fund his brainchild, and he will surely find them. Whoever pays him, that's who he sings for.

Thank god Lieberman is becoming such a long shot for the nomination. He is a certified neocon.

[ClintonTyree]

5. Declare them..........

military combatants and send them to Gitmo for 'reeducation'. Just kidding. Maybe they can help move furniture for the incoming real Democrats?

[revcarol]

6. If Dean wins, the DLC will declare they were with him all along,

and undermine him from within the Democratic Party. No scruples, these guys. A take off on "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy!!" Greed and special favors for their particular business and not wanting a level playing field...

WHICHEVER DEMOCRAT wins the WH has GOT to cancel out their influence the way Roosevelt cancelled out the influence of some party members and his opponents, by going directly to the people.

[chimpymustgo]

7. He won't win without their help, so there's really no issue here.

Why the attempt to exclude people from the party? We need everybody!

Edwards/Clark "04

[Prodemsouth]

8. Nothing

You want him to act like Bush. My way or the highway- this proves the ultra lefties think like conservatives. It is the ultra lefties that always swing to the right. Micheal Savage, David Horowitz, damn near everyone of the neo-cons were all ultra leftist at one time.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

9. Dean Can't Beat Bush-It's McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis Redux

I desperately want to see Bush defeated as I wanted to see Nixon, Reagan, and Papa Bush defeated. According to most polling research twenty percent of Americans are liberal, thirty percent are conservative, and forty percent are in the middle. As you can see the right already begins with an advantage. Our challenge, as Democrats are to appeal to the forty percent of Americans in the middle. We need a candidate that can appeal to them.

[chimpymustgo]

10. Thank you, Democrat! Some folks' elitism is showing!

Think about what you are saying here! We've got to appeal to all kinds of people, and shouldn't be shutting the door to anyone.

[thom1102]

13. dean can take the middle

Look at his stance on policy and his history in Vermont. Everyone thinks that Vermont is some Liberal Utopia, but the truth is that is is a real microcosm(sp) of the country with some hard core conservative elements. Dean was a moderate. He didn't just one day decide he was going to go and fight for civil unions. The Vermont Supreme Court ruled against the state, and he worked to devise legislation that would satisfy the court ruling. Essentially, his hand was forced. He has since embraced that ruling, but doesn't advocate extending it on a national level. His approach for expanding healthcare is modest compared to Kucinich and Gephardt.

All I am saying is Dean is not as liberal as people think he is. The fact that he can line up this kind of liberal support, while remaining centrist in policy is a tremendous bonus for us, because it means that we won't lose a large part of our activist base to the Greens.

[union_maid]

14. Dean is none of them

Those candidates didn't lose because of policy. They were good men who lost because of an inability to kick butt and to connect with "the people". That allowed the Republicans to effectively trash them on policy, but if the people liked them enough it wouldn't have mattered. They've all been very effective on their own turf - their own states where voters know and understand them and working among other politicians. The presidency is a different office from all others. You need someone who can preach to people who aren't in the choir and get the message across and to people who come from all regions of the country and all backgrounds. Dean seems to be able to do that. Way too early to say he can go all the way with that, but he does have the populist appeal that's a weak point with a lot of Democrats.

[aquart]

18. Crap. Meadow muffins on toast.

The situations aren't comparable.

I'd vote for Dean. I loathed your hero McGovern, self-serving ass that he was.

[OKNancy]

12. Why would Dean want to do that?

Even if he could, which is not likely, Dean would want the fund raising abilities of the DLC.

Also, with the exception of the war issue, Dean is a centrist Democrat ( so I've been told by his suppoters here on DU) and is a DLC kinda' guy.

The way I see it is that the DLC is foolish with their attacks on Dean. I think they should just keep quite instead of angering Dean supporters. But believe me, if Dean gets the nomination everybody will be cozy and lovey-dovey.

[Prodemsouth]

15. I am not defending the DLC attacks on Dean. I am not saying Dean

can't win. My earlier post was a response to the intial poster. I do not consider Dean to be an ultra leftie- but many of his supporters are and they are in for a shock when they find out Dean is not like them.

[ulysses]

16. I don't think anyone here

is laboring under the misconception that Dean is any kind of "ultra-leftie".

[jonnyblitz]

20. naaah.....we "ultra-lefties" know what is up with Dean...

and we have from the beginning.

[OKNancy]

23. Huh again

Are you responding to me? My respnse was to the original post.
Check the upper right of each message.

( Unless I'm confused, which is entirely possible)

[tjdee]

17. Dean disagrees with you.

Al Sharpton talked about how the DLC were ruining our party, and Dean said "I disagree with Al about the DLC".

So I really don't see how he's going to destroy them when he realizes he needs their votes.

As for everyone else, if they didn't want it there it wouldn't be.

[JI7]

21. isn't dean still part of the dlc ?

i never heard anywhere that he was no longer a member. their site only includes current office holders so he isn't up there. but did he ever formally give up membership ? and do you know when the exchange between sharpton and dean that you mention was made ?

[tjdee]

22. I posted a thread on it yesterday.

It's also in the text of an article posted in LBN.

My thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=30240&mesg_id=30240&page=

Umm, and the thread in LBN is called "Dean evolving toward center" or something similar.

[ulysses]

19. Dean's not going to destroy the DLC

Destroying the DLC, or, if possible, reforming its frightened outlook on political strategy, is the work of more than one election cycle, more than one presidency. Destroying the DLC begins with the work that *all of us* have to do at two things: standing up every day for the liberalism that the DLC abandoned, and reasserting the primacy of government of, by and for the people, not corporations.