Why is there so much focus on the DLC?

[Solon]

In addition, why the fuck do those who hate the DLC so much adopt its language?

Seriously, Progressives? A weak, cop out word used by people who adopt populist language while advocating for "third way" policies. Like these guys(affiliated with the DLC):

http://www.ppionline.org/

Seriously, you'd never see me use the word progressive to describe myself, I'm a leftist, liberal, communist, socialist, whatever, I'm way the fuck over on the left side of the spectrum. I can understand why some liberals prefer that word over the word liberal, because Republicans have made it a scare term, but let's take it back rather than abandon it, OK?

What I'm puzzled by is this erroneous belief that, because Hillary is a member of the DLC, if she loses the nomination and/or presidency, they will be destroyed, minimized, or some such shit. Nothing could be further from the truth, the fact is that Hillary is but ONE member of the organization, and whether she becomes President or not only affects whether the DLC is able to influence the tone of Democratic politics for four years. Even if she's not elected, then their influence won't diminish that much, most of their influence is felt through Congress and State Governments, and that won't changed when Obama enters the White House.

In addition to this, Obama's policies don't differ that much from the DLC's stand on the issues anyways, so the net effect is that, whether its Hillary or Obama in the White House, the results would be the same.

Whether its a moderate from the DLC, or a moderate from somewhere else, it doesn't matter that much. In addition, most folks on the ground, even many party activists, barely even know that the DLC exist, much less understand what they stand for.

As such, I believe their influence within the party is overstated quite a bit, they have some influence, but they don't control the party, hell, as far as I can tell, no one controls the party, its as disorganized as ever. There are other reasons to favor Obama over Hillary, but the fact that she's a DLC member should be number 1032 on the list, not number 1.

[MADem]

1. Because people feel cool and superior when they have something to hate.

Even when that "something" is chock-a-block full of people they are cheering on, because they really have no clue what the hell they're actually mad about. It's a team sport, you see.

[MagickMuffin]

2. Here's something to consider: The DLC doesn't LIKE the Grassroots movement.

The DLC only favored CorpoMoney for their donations. And since they only courted the CorpoMoney the left wing of the Democratic Party was ignored, except when it came time for OUR votes. Then they paid us. They have been doing this since their existence.

Since the DLC were only interested in the CorpoMoney they became beholden to the CorpoMoney's political interest i.e. "Special Interest" which made sure they would continue getting their support further down the road. Terrence McAuliffe was one of the reasons I detest the DLC. He IS an insider. He has made MILLIONS because of his connections.

McAuliffe has been criticized by political commentators such as William Safire and Arianna Huffington for his ties to Global Crossing, a company that went bankrupt in 2002 amidst what The New York Times called "many of the same accusations that have made Enron into one of the largest corporate scandals in history."

In 1997, McAuliffe purchased a pre-IPO $100,000 stake in Global Crossing. By 1999, McAuliffe sold his investment, which was then valued at $18 million dollars. Howard Kurtz of CNN reported that McAuliffe sold his shares years before there was "any hint of trouble with the company" thus clearing him of any wrongdoing.


In 1999, the U.S. Department of Labor sued Jack Moore, pension fund manager for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, on the basis of several deals made with McAuliffe. In one deal, McAuliffe and the pension fund partnered to buy commercial property in Florida, with McAuliffe investing $100 while the pension fund put up $39 million. McAuliffe received a 50% interest in the partnership and emerged with $2.45 million from his original $100 investment.

Some of us Liberals soon learned about the DLC and didn't like the fact we were being used. With Howard Dean's movement and now with Barack Obama's 50 state strategy, the Grassroots Movement are donating to the campaigns like never before. Because WE matter. Our voices are being heard, we will NOT be taken for granted by the "upper echelons" within our Party.


Anyway that's my take on it, since you asked. I'm like you a VERY LIBERAL minded individual:evilgrin:

[Solon]

3. There's no evidence that the "grassroots" is any more liberal than...

the top echelon, as you put it. At least not where it counts, and, if I remember right, the 50 state strategy worked pretty good in 2006, and yet the Democrats still ignored the people after they retook the majority in Congress. Why would this time be any different?

[MagickMuffin]

5. To answer your questions, We still didn't HAVE enough Votes in Congress to make a difference

If every Democrat shows up to vote in November and we sweep the elections then we have a better chance of making a change. But we WILL need to win by large enough margins to make a difference.

And I didn't make the claim that the Grassroots Movement was liberal. I said the Grassroots Movement was donating MONEY. It doesn't matter to me what the Grassroots wants to label themselves, or if they have progressives/liberals/socialist/_____ involved in the movement. What matters is they are donating MONEY. Money that isn't coming from Corporations.

The upper echelon IS NOT liberal, they are extremely conservative IMO. Way to conservative for me and since they take money from the Corporations then they are beholden to their interests. I have a problem with that. That is one reason B. Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act. He owed them BIG time. That is another reason we are in some of the mess we are in today.

[last1standing]

4. Progressives have been around longer than liberals.

To be a progressive is to look at long term solutions and ways to make like better, regardless of where that solution lies in the political spectrum of left and right. It is also the opposite of being a reactionary.

To be reactionary is to dismiss change and progress. Reactionists use a knee-jerk mentality to everything. If something isn't broke, don't fix it even if it's now working well.

Progressives look for solutions to problems regardless of ideology and try to resolve issues long term instead of the band-aid approach favored by reactionaries. For example, I favor a balanced budget because that leads to long term ecomomic well being. However, I also favor socializing necessary social functions like the police, military, medical care, etc... One would be considered right wing, while the other left wing. However, both would create a stronger, more stable country, benefiting all the people.

That's why I don't like to see "Liberal" linked to "Progressive". Liberals can be just as reactionary as Conservatives.

[Solon]

12. You are confusing fiscal responsibility with economic conservativism...

A communist can believe in balanced budgets, there is no ideology on the left that says nations must spend themselves into debt. That was a strawman set up by Republicans, years ago, to blast Democratic policies. I find it sad that such a myth is still perpetuated on this board.

[last1standing]

32. I don't think I am.

I think you're letting old stereotypes make you link a monetary system with political beliefs. While it's a common assertion that communism is to the left of liberalism, they are two entirely different things. I've known liberal capitalists and communists just as I've known conservatives of either group. In fact, the strawman that was set up was when repubs, led by Joe McCarthy, tied liberals in with communism without any real merit.

Maybe it would be best to think of progressivism as an overarching philosophy of life, if it helps for this conversation, while liberalism is more related to political stance. One stance that liberals have taken for years is that it is more important to take care of people than it is to balance the budget. While I completely agree with that, I also believe that the best way to take care of people in the long term is to balance the budget so that the country is stable enough to enact real changes. It's the difference between short term and long term policies.

[Two Americas]

6. couldn't agree more

The less the labels mean and the more poorly they are defined, the more people identify with them and fight over them. It is a very strange and quite modern thing, from my observations. It is from the saturation of our lives with corporate sales and marketing programs, so that people are thinking in terms of brands? Or is it the desperate need to belong to a club, or a cult? Or is it the impact of Hollywood, causing people to feel a need to interpret the world by seeing simplistic good versus evil melodramas everywhere?

[DerekJ]

7. Does Hillary Clinton support the neoconservative manifesto the Project for the New American Century?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x5222518


Before you vote for Hillary Clinton, please consider the following:

Research Questions:

Does Hillary Clinton support the neoconservative manifesto the Project for the New American Century (PNAC)?

Will electing her to be the President of the United States not only enable the destruction of the Democratic Party, but will it also damage the U.S. Government for generations, if not forever, thus transforming it into a permanent police state or empire?

Data:

1. Hillary Clinton is a team leader of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC).

2. Hillary Clinton praised the work of DLC and Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) founders, specifically with regard to their work in transforming the Democratic Party in the manner in which they proscribed (see below).

3-5. The founders of the DLC and PPI are members of or ideologically associated with PNAC; These DLC founders want to transform the Democratic Party, making it compatible with neo-liberalism/neo-conservatism.

________________

1. Hillary Clinton is a DLC team leader:

The DLC Leadership Team
http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ka.cfm?kaid=137

________________

2. Hillary Clinton praises the work of Will Marshall and Al From, among others:


DLC | Speech | July 26, 2005
Remarks of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to the 2005 DLC National Conversation

(snip)

"So I would like to start by thanking Al From and Will Marshall, Bruce Reed, and all of the people at the DLC and the PPI, not only for the rich legacy of your ideas, which have helped to transform our party and reinvigorate our country, but for your determination to stay focused on the future, laying the groundwork for the next great era of Democratic leadership."

(snip)

http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=137&subid=900111&co...

________________


The co-founder of the DLC is a member of PNAC: Will Marshall

3. Will Marshall:
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1295

(snip)

With Al From, in 1985 Marshall cofounded the DLC, an important bastion of center-right Democrats that was once chaired by Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT). In 1989, Marshall founded the PPI, a think tank that is affiliated with the DLC. Both organizations are sometimes described as neoconservative for their foreign policy positions. In an analysis of the two groups' stance on the Israeli offensive against Hezbollah in summer 2006, Tom Barry wrote: "In practice, though, DLC/PPI positions differ little from that of the Bush administration. As Israel rained bombs down on Lebanon, the DLC's New Dem Dispatch echoed the neoconservative camp in its plea for the Bush administration to avoid the supposed shame of appeasement in the Middle East. Adopting the same line taken by the Bush administration and the Israeli government, the newsletter recommended that the war be taken to Tehran and Damascus, which 'have become clear threats to regional and world peace, and must be isolated and sanctioned, not appeased.'"

(snip)

Marshall was one of 15 analysts who co-wrote the PPI's October 2003 foreign policy blueprint, "Progressive Internationalism: A Democratic National Security Strategy." Using language that closely mirrors that of the neoconservative-led Project for the New American Century (PNAC), the PPI hailed the "tough-minded internationalism" of past Democratic presidents such as Harry Truman. Like PNAC, which in its founding statement warned of grave present dangers confronting America, the PPI strategy declared that, "Today America is threatened once again" and is in need of assertive individuals committed to strong leadership. The authors' observation that, "like the Cold War, the struggle we face today is likely to last not years but decades," echoes both neoconservative and Bush administration national security assessments. As the "Progressive Internationalism" authors explain, the PPI endorsed the invasion of Iraq "because the previous policy of containment was failing, because Saddam posed a grave danger to America as well as to his own brutalized people, and because his blatant defiance of more than a decade's worth of UN Security Council resolutions was undermining both collective security and international law."

(snip)

Although Marshall calls himself a "centrist," he has associated himself with neoconservative organizations and their radical foreign policy agendas. At the onset of the Iraq invasion, Marshall signed statements issued by the Project for the New American Century calling for the removal of Saddam Hussein, advocating that NATO help "secure and destroy all of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction," and arguing that the invasion "can contribute decisively to the democratization of the Middle East."

Marshall's credentials as a liberal hawk have been well established by his affinity for other PNAC-associated groups, including the U.S. Committee on NATO and the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq. Marshall served on the board of directors of the U.S. Committee on NATO alongside such leading neoconservative figures as Robert Kagan, Richard Perle, Randy Scheunemann, Paul Wolfowitz, Stephen Hadley, Peter Rodman, Jeffrey Gedmin, Gary Schmitt, and the committee's founder and president Bruce Jackson. At the request of the Bush administration, Jackson also formed the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which, with former DLC chairman Joseph Lieberman serving as co-chair with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), aimed to build bipartisan support for the liberation, occupation, and democratization of Iraq. Marshall, together with former Democratic Sen. Robert Kerrey of Nebraska (who coauthored "Progressive Internationalism"), represented the liberal hawk wing of the Democratic Party on the committee's neocon-dominated advisory board. Other advisers included James Woolsey, Eliot Cohen, Newt Gingrich, William Kristol, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Joshua Muravchik, Chris Williams, and Richard Perle.

On February 25, 2003, Marshall joined an array of neoconservatives marshaled by the Social Democrats/USA (SD/USA)—a wellspring of neoconservative strategy—to sign a letter to Bush calling for the invasion of Iraq. Marshall and others asked the president to "act alone if that proves necessary" and then, as a follow-up to a military-induced regime change in Iraq, to implement a democratization plan. The SD/USA letter urged the president to commit his administration to "maintaining substantial U.S. military forces in Iraq for as long as may be required to ensure a stable, representative regime is in place and functioning." Others signing the SD/USA letter included Jackson, Kagan, Woolsey, Hillel Fradkin, Rachelle Horowitz, Penn Kemble, Nina Shea, Michael Novak, Clifford May, and Ben Wattenberg.

(snip)

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1295

________________


http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1463

4. Democratic Leadership Council

(snip)

The DLC was established in the wake of President Ronald Reagan's 1984 landslide victory, in which he won 49 states, over Democrat Walter Mondale. During the Democratic convention in San Francisco, Mondale had successfully beat back a challenge from Gary Hart, who predicted that unless the Democratic Party adopted a new image it would be decisively defeated. Mondale proved unable to respond effectively to charges from the Republican right and neoconservative Democrats that the Democratic Party was the party of progressives-which Jeane Kirkpatrick variously labeled as the "San Francisco Democrats" and the "blame America first" Democrats-who were out of touch with mainstream America. As Dan Balz and Ronald Brownstein concluded in their book Storming the Gates, "Mondale's landslide defeat exposed as a dead end the vision of regaining the White House by mobilizing an army of the disaffected with a message of unreconstructed liberalism."

Pondering the Mondale defeat, a gathering coalition of Southern Democrats and northern neoliberals expressed concerns that the Democratic Party faced extinction, particularly in the South and West, if the party continued to rely on its New Deal message of government intervention and kept catering to traditional constituencies of labor, minorities, and anti-war progressives. In 1985, Al From, an aide to Rep. Gillis Long (D-LA), took the lead in formulating a new messaging strategy for the party's centrists, neoliberals, and conservatives. Will Marshall, at that time Long's policy analyst and speechwriter, worked closely with From to establish the DLC and then became its first policy director.

In his "Saving the Democratic Party" memo of January 1985, From advocated the formation of a "governing council" that would draft a "blueprint" for reforming the party. According to From, the new leadership should aim to create distance from "the new bosses"-organized labor, feminists, and other progressive constituency groups-that were keeping the party from modernizing. From's memo sparked the formation of the Democratic Leadership Council in early 1985. According to Balz and Brownstein, "Within a few weeks, it counted 75 members, primarily governors and members of Congress, most of them from the Sunbelt, and almost all of them white; liberal critics instantly dubbed the group 'the white male caucus.'"
(snip)

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1463

________________


http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1534.html

5. Progressive Policy Institute

"Don't look now, but neoconservatism is making a comeback-and not among the Republicans who have made it famous, but in the Democratic Party," declared writer Jacob Heilbrunn in a May 28, 2006 op-ed for the Los Angeles Times. In "Neocons in the Democratic Party," Heilbrunn argued that a new generation of Democratic "pundits and young national security experts" are trying to revive the Cold War precepts of President Harry S. Truman and apply them to the war on terror. "The fledgling neocons of the left are based at places such as the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI), whose president, Will Marshall, has just released a volume of doctrine called With All Our Might: A Progressive Strategy for Defeating Jihadism and Defending Liberty . Their political champions include Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman and such likely presidential candidates as former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner and Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, who is chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC)."

(snip)

PPI, founded in 1989 by Marshall and Al From, is a project of the Third Way Foundation, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization. As the think tank for the Democratic Leadership Council, the PPI says its mission "arises from the belief that America is ill-served by an obsolete left-right debate that is out of step with the powerful forces reshaping our society and economy." PPI claims to advocate "a philosophy that adapts the progressive tradition in American politics to the realities of the information age and points to a 'third way' beyond the liberal impulse to defend the bureaucratic status quo and the conservative bid to simply dismantle government."

Marshall and From have long advocated for a "third way" in the political debate that consists of free-market principles that largely echo the right-wing platform, making their organization's name misleading. Indeed, one of PPI's five strategies includes "confronting global disorder by building enduring new international structures of economic and political freedom" (PPI Overview, June 1, 1998).

Marshall is president of the Third Way Foundation and of PPI, and From is the foundation's chairman. Paul Weinstein is the institute's chief operating officer. In fiscal 2004, Third Way board members included Linda Peek Schacht, Charles Alston, William Budinger, William Galston, and Susan Hothem, according to the IRS Form 990 provided at GuideStar.org. PPI staff includes Marshall, Steven Nider (expert in foreign and security studies), Michele Stockwell (education and social policy), David Kendall (health), Edward Gresser (trade), and Jan Mazurek (energy and environment). PPI senior fellows include Weinstein, Andrew Rotherham, Marshall Wittmann, and Fred Siegel. PPI operates on an annual budget approaching $3 million. Seymour Martin Lipset, a leading neoconservative political sociologist, is a former PPI board member, according to a 2002 report by Capital Research Center.

The core principles of the "third way movement" are set forth in the DLC/PPI's 1996 publication, The New Progressive Declaration: A Political Philosophy for the Information Age. As the New Democrats explain, the enduring progressive values must be adapted to the information age, which translates into policy recommendations that are very close to policies articulated by the administration of George W. Bush: uncompromising support for free market and free trade economics, a strong military with a global presence, an end to the politics of entitlement, rejection of affirmative action, and an embrace of competitive enterprise while at the same time rejecting a key role for government in development policy. Expressing the opinion of many progressive Democrats, Robert Kuttner, American Prospect editor, wrote that the political approach of the DLC amounts to "splitting the difference with a Republican administration" (American Prospect, July 7, 2002).

(snip)

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1534.html

________________

Conclusion:

You decide.

Will a vote for a PNAC-PPI-DLC candidate, not only enable the destruction of the Democratic Party, but will it also empower those who will continue to use our government, hence our good name, to commit and condone mass murder and theft on a global scale?

Should we support people who have openly stated they will reshape our democracy to conform to the mission principles of the PNAC manifesto?

Finally, will this lead to a permanent police state, governed by and for an elite ruling class, thus transforming the United States of America into an empire?

[Ichingcarpenter]

11. I won't nominate this thread but your post save

many the wasted time answering the OP's question.

Thanks!!!

I don't know how many times these DLC battles have been done here
and every time, the DLC comes up shorter than a micron

[Solon]

13. Where the fuck did I say I was going to vote for Clinton over Obama?

First, the primary here in my state has been over for well over a month. Second, I didn't indicate I was supporting Clinton, period. Thirdly, I see no indication that Obama is much different in foreign policy from either Clinton, the DLC, or PNAC. Unlike what many people think, PNAC's policies are just a carryover of the bipartisan policy of absolute dominance, over all regions of the world, that the U.S. has been practicing for well over 50 years. I see no indication of Obama changing those policies.

[Ichingcarpenter]

16. I know your writings and they are good. However

Too many known DLCers responded to your thread supporting you.
Which is to me like fascist support for your rant and I thought
that was alarming.

I couldn't take that and won't, sure Obama is not left enough
for me or you, but he sure is a damn lot better than any DLCer and
he is more bottom up vs top down than what we have seen it years.
Which might give us the chance to make real change.

BLM, OctaFish and others know what is what.

[Solon]

17. I just doubt how much influence we would have on his policies...

Obama is a centrist, and his policy positions are basically copied from the DLC's position papers. The DLC are fans of "market based"(i.e. bullshit) solutions to problems such as energy and the environment, and so is Obama. They both are big believers in American dominance in foreign policy, even if Obama tones his rhetoric down a little bit.

Hell, even on one particular issue, health care, Obama is closer to the DLC position than Hillary is! That's just pathetic on his part.

The major difference between the two is the campaign funding, however, its still up in the air as to whether or not Obama can be influenced after the election. He could go either way, and frankly his assurances on this sound hollow to me.

[DerekJ]

8. In other words to sum my post above ....DLC = NEOCONS

[Romulox]

30. Then there are Neocons in Barack Obama's inner circle...nt

[WA98296]

9. The GOAL of the DLC is to move AWAY from populist positions. They favor Corp. America.

[Solon]

14. Populist positions, yes that's true, but they still pretend to care about working people...

I also don't see many policies that Obama advocates that differs greatly from their's.

[WA98296]

31. They move AWAY from Populist positions, and YES they do PRETEND to care

- While they give away our good jobs with outsourcing courtesy trade agreements like NAFTA (thanks to the Clinton administration)
- They have been a huge reason that our media is a mess because of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (thanks to the Clinton administration)
- Don't mind having us sacrifice our privacy with random drug testing in the workplace, (thanks to the Clinton administration)

The DLC is a the DINO (democrat in name only) wing of the party, which PRETENDS to be democrats while shoving republican, corporate-catering policies on us.

[ekwhite]

10. The term progressive has been around a long time

It speaks of a proud tradition dating back to Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Party To quote Teddy Roosevelt.

To destroy this invisible Government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. Several points

1- Just like you I am a LIBERAL... and damn them for doing what they have done by hijacking the word

2.- You are right OBAMA and CLINTON are CENTRIST (translation RW where the center stands today),. that said she is DLC, he is not.

3.- No, the DLC will not go away, but there is a certain transfer of power from one generation to the next, and this will weaken the DLC... that alone is valuable

4.- Now here is my hope... that Obama will betray his class in the form FDR did, since FDR didn't run on the New Deal either, and yes I know I might be dreaming. But hey, I can hope now, can't I?

[paulk]

18. the wailing and gnashing of teeth that will be heard

when Obama's faithful finally come to realize that, not only is their Savior just as much a DLC centrist as Hillary, but that he is actually to the right of her, will truly be a humorous thing.

[Solon]

20. I won't find it humorous, I would find it horrendious...

Millions of people would feel betrayed by the only candidate they believe could change Washington. This will lead to millions of people who will be completely despondent and apathetic towards politics for the next generation at least. We don't need that to happen, indeed, I'm hoping I'm wrong about Obama, but I fear I'm right.

[PassingFair]

21. As long as he is not funded, nor beholden to them....

we will have the last laugh.

[PassingFair]

19. K & R. Just for post #7.

Barack is not beholden to them.

The hope that our party can bleed them
out and cauterize the resulting wound
is enough to garner MY vote.

I had ENOUGH of From, Reed and their
ILK during the 04 election to last
me a lifetime....

Flushing Lieberman was a good start.

This is the next step.

Blue Dogs will hopefully be next.

[Solon]

22. We do not live in a multi-party parlimentary system...

we live in a state with two political parties that more resemble coalitions than political parties. This is part of the reason why our parties, both of them, have such a wide variety of politicians and people in them. In such a system, conservatives actually have an advantage, because the mindset of conservatives is more receptive to the idea of following the leader or following the party.

Because of this, leftwing activists already are locked out of the system, simply because they are given minority status because they are fractured themselves, and attempting to impose either party discipline or following a leader on them will backfire, badly.

If this were a multi-party state, let's say a four or three party state, we wouldn't even be having this conversation, we would be members of the left-most political party that wouldn't have either Obama or Hillary on the presidential ticket, nor would the DLC or Blue Dogs be members either, they would be members of either a centrist or center-right party, depending on how many viable parties there actually are.

[PassingFair]

23. They can be marginalized by the will of the people.

And they will be.

In doing so, we will GAIN fiscally conservative
voters.

[Solon]

24. How?

When about half of the party is more conservative than you think, on most issues, including the economy, why would they want to pressure the party to move left at all? Aren't they already happy enough with where it is right now?

Also, don't confuse fiscal conservatism(another term for responsibility) with economic conservatism(faith in the "free market"). You can be a communist and believe in balanced budgets, at the same time, there is no conflict between the two. Nothing in leftist ideology requires us to run the nation into debt, don't perpetuate that Republican myth, please.

[PassingFair]

26. When we clean out our closets, we will attract honest voters.

I am SICK of making excuses for democrats.

We SAY one thing and our bought and paid for representatives
vote for the other side.

We can attract communists AND conservatives
by standing clearly on the issues.

A Democratic Senate that had said NO to IWR
would have carried us into power long before
now.

[Romulox]

25. AUSTAN GOOLSBEE (chief economist for the DLC) is Obama's chief economic adviser

Barack Obama as the anti-DLC candidate is a matter of either ignorance or cognitive dissonance.

[Lilith Velkor]

35. Yyyup. n/t

[kentuck]

27. Because they are a bunch of wimps...

They have compromised with the Republican right-wingers and have sold out the principles of our Party until we have reached the point where nobody in leadership has any balls anymore. The Republicans did not win because they were so great - the Democrats lost because they were so sorry. Thanks a great deal to the DLC.

[Solon]

28. But not entirely because of the DLC...

If the DLC never organized itself, I doubt things would have turned out much differently. We have both economic and socially conservative Democrats in the party, and in most cases they are the first to compromise. But even the most liberal of Representatives can be bought(Conyers and the RIAA), so I don't see how much Obama can do, even if he's willing to do it, which I find doubtful.

[kentuck]

29. Not entirely but a great deal of it...

It was no compromise. It was surrender.

[Writer]

33. I have never, never understood this one.

The DLC is simply an organization concerned with the promotion of more centrist ideals in the face of what was once an active conservative swing in American politics (ending this year.) That's all. They're not the evil rotten monolith they've been made out to be. They're just a think tank, and nothing more. It will exist for long after this election.

I've never understood the obsession with this organization.

[Writer]

34. I have never, never understood this one.

The DLC is simply an organization concerned with the promotion of more centrist ideals in the face of what was once an active conservative swing in American politics (ending this year.) That's all. They're not the evil rotten monolith they've been made out to be. They're just a think tank, and nothing more. It will exist for long after this election.

I've never understood the obsession with this organization.