Reply #8: The DLC downplayed Dean's statement as an "off-the-cuff slip". [View All]

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Ed Kilgore, policy director of the centrist Democrat Leadership Council, which has cautioned against some of Dean’s positions and rhetoric as too left-leaning, downplayed Dean’s comments.

The ‘L-word’ is exciting to some people, off-putting to others, boring to others,” Kilgore said. “The only problem with being a self-identified liberal is if you look at the numbers. Self-described Democrats are about a third of the electorate, self-described liberals are a third of that.”

“Centrists and liberals share most of the same values and goals … (but) nobody’s going to be elected by appealing solely to the value of liberals,” Kilgore said. “They’re an important part of the party, but they’re not a majority; we just have to remember that.”

Davis dismissed the statement as an off-the-cuff slip.

“I think he probably wants to use a word other than liberal to describe himself in the national debate,” he said. “He would prefer centrist, moderate, mainstream, pragmatic. He wants to portray Bush as out of the mainstream by being so far to the right. If I were Dean, I would use words like those and appeal to the liberals in the crowd by talking about policy rather than referring to labels.”
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