Figured I'd make my bones by starting a DLC thread....

DLC scary. DLC evil. Your candidate...DLC.

that their days of dictating to the candidates might just be over.

Richardson was doctrinaire DLC when he was first elected to the governorship in this state. His first couple of years in office were awful. He has changed quite a bit lately and the longer he's out of the DC culture, the better he has gotten.

The DLC is in for a major shakeup. If they adapt, they will survive. If not, they can expect to have future meetings and conferences be duplicates of last week's total frost.

For all to see. http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1463

But it is the war in Iraq and the Bush administration's heavy-handed war on terror, both largely supported by DLC leaders, that are at the center of a growing debate among Democrats about the future direction of the party. Instead of addressing the debate head on, Clinton argued that the party “will not let the president and the Republicans off the hook for the mistakes they've made and the disastrous policies they have followed abroad. We'll hold them accountable every bit as much for national security and homeland security as for their failure to provide Americans with economic security.” About Iraq, Clinton managed to say that a Democratic-led Congress “would investigate no-bid contracts, the role oil companies are playing in Iraq, and supply problems that have plagued U.S. combat troops” (Los Angeles Times, July 25, 2006).

try www.ihatethedlc.com

... which is my point.

I would LIKE to know more about the DLC... not because I believe it's a good political organization run by some think tank or part of a bigger organization. It's because the DLC has been referred to in group discussion, but not very well dissected.

Maybe I should check archives of DU...

Took a while for me to link to this. Thank you. Now, I'm re-examining an awful lot by examining what this paper says on DLC origins.

I am asking myself about the origins of our Democratic "base", not the Democratic party of today (duh, bet that's not news to anyone) , but even more interesting- what basically happened as a result of Al From and the bureaucracy who developed DLC policy from politics.

I reserve the right to be correct myself. However, it sure seems the DLC has nothing to do with the base of what I saw as my generation, certainly my parents and grandparents generational concerns (labor, women's rights, civil rights, peace activists) These are the same people who are so aptly described in Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States (1492-Present).

I believe the DLC took the worst of wrong turns when deciding the Democratic party should react to the, "rise in conservatism". In that move, we were turning the party towards its LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR- white flight, homophobic,xenophobic conservatism. Little wonder about infighting among the growing numbers of the ranks. I think we have gotten the notion that we have to appease to moderates and beyond in order to address what I see as real issues of a true middle class. In my parents day- those were the folks who understood that fair labor and civil rights were something we had to have the politicians "get behind for the little guy". I believe sooner (rather than later) we are going to have to come to turns with who we are and who is in charge.

The Democratic party cannot afford to become Republican lite, so I guess this reinforces my ideas about why I don't care about HRC, BO, BR, or anyone who cares little about the difference.
:think:

that they're completely amoral and have no basic principles except winning at all costs.

Just like the republicans...

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1295/is_10_64/ai_65952690

John Nichols in The Progressive, 2000

"At the national convention of a major political party, an ideologically rigid sectarian clique secures the ultimate triumph. It inserts two of its own as nominees for the Presidency and the Vice Presidency. Heavily financed by the most powerful corporations in the world, the group's leaders gather in a private club fifty-four floors above the convention hall, apart from the delegates of the party they had infiltrated. There, they carefully monitor the convention's acceptance of a platform the organization had drafted almost in its entirety. Then, with the ticket secured and with the policy course of the party set, they introduce a team of 100 shock troops to deploy across the country to lock up the party's grassroots.

This is not some fantastic political thriller starring Harrison Ford or Sharon Stone. This is the real-life version of Invasion of the Party Snatchers--with the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) burrowing into the pod that is the Democratic Party.

Founded in the mid-1980s with essentially the same purpose as the Christian Coalition--to pull a broad political party dramatically to the right--the DLC has been far more successful than its headline-grabbing Republican counterpart. After Walter Mondale's 1984 defeat at the hands of Ronald Reagan, a group of mostly Southern, conservative Democrats hatched the theory that their party was in trouble because it had grown too sympathetic to the agendas of organized labor, feminists, African Americans, Latinos, gays and lesbians, peace activists, and egalitarians."


ATTACK OF THE POD PEOPLE...

At the time it seemed to bring together all the extraneous occurrences of the decade, and painted a picture that made sense. Before the days of the easily accessible internet, most of the information I received on politics was from the print media or three years too late books. I sensed the change in the democratic party, but the overall direction remained hazy. This article was sort of a 'all in a nut shell' progression, that brought into focus the foreign and domestic, economic and military, policy.

A realization, that with deregulation and privatization, and with globalization and corporate personhood, the majority we call the people, were 'seemingly' systematically downsized. The future political solutions were place below a mountain of political corporate cash, and beyond my imagination. And then came Bush.

The future of easing into retirement was instead reordered into trying to economically survive until retirement.

... the DLC is in large part funded by many fortune 500 companies...

The preceeding paragraphs from Rightweb were a mix. On the one hand, the current numbers of Dem's in congress instrumental in the DLC, want to follow the steps of our founding "fathers" for keeping the republic, then it sort of gets pulled apart from there in a typical bureacratic fashion.

So, I believe candidate Kucinich is missing from the team players like the Vilsaks and Clinton, et all part of this club.


Is Gore still part of this club?

And still runs with the Republicans.

Doubtful. His work on climate change and his recommendations for reducing the US carbon signature, is policy that is highly inconsistent with 'self policing' of the major corporate financiers of the DLC. The DLC would have to change its political philosophy considerably, to compliment the basis of beliefs described in "The Assault on Reason".

I doubt it, too. If it doesn't fit the corporatocracy mold...

to the section on Climate Change on their website.

http://www.ndol.org/ndol_sub.cfm?kaid=116&subid=149

According to the first article they seem to support the Kyoto Protocol.

after the negotiations in the late 90s watered down emissions protocols with emissions credits, but then the Senate failed to ratify the treaty in 1998 (?) by a unanimous 98 - 0 vote. In the end the DLC failed to support the treaty in hopes of further negotiation. The Kyoto treaty approval languished without progress through the 2000 election and then was Bushed.

It cannot be said the DLC has been absent from the carbon debate, in fact, the PPI over the years has endorsed certain papers dealing with market driven emission credits, and hybrid approaches of allocating and trading emission credits. As well, they have called for mileage standards and supported in concept the research and production of hybrid vehicles.

In effect some of the policy suggestions have proposed shifting the burden of emission containment away from upstream producers such as electric producers, gas utilities, oil refineries, etc., and redistributed them. In the end the consumer in one way or the other will pay a form of energy tax in the cost of unit consumption, but the PPI solutions have reduced burdens for the large corporate producers.

Without judgment of whether this is in the end good or bad for consumers, the fact is that to date all proposed solutions fall well short of the benchmarks Gore has suggested are necessary. The DLC has expressed the need of the first baby steps but by no means have they taken the politically unpopular leap, that is needed if one subscribes to Gores stated goals. In fairness one must impart they are light years ahead of the think tanks on the other side of the isle, like the Heritage Foundation and Hudson Institute who still can't believe a problem exists.

One thing that should be stated in distance from my above post, is the DLC/PPI papers have supported a mandatory carbon emissions cap, but as stated in this post, have proposed redistributing the burden, and employing market trade-able emission credits. In the larger scheme, will this have an effect of marshalling the majority use of energy and technology away from the poorest countries? If Globalization is a clue, the comfort will remain in first world countries, the bulk of the manual labor, poverty, and lesser living conditions will be distributed elsewhere.

a) The DLC is part of the Illuminati.

b) The DLC controls the Democratic Party... somehow.

c) The DLC's apparent control is slipping, because, well... It's just slipping, okay?

What a strawman.

... Since the DLC appears to be reactionary to the complete fouling up of policy a la Ronald Ray-guns, and put candidates Clinton and Gore into the race, what is the scary part and evil part.

I'm not purposely being naive, I just don't know what difference it makes. I mean, if it were not for the DLC, perhaps vocal opponents of it like Jesse Jackson may not have risen to the level of their influence.

Does a DLC candidate constitute someone who would carry into polity scary, or evil platforms?

...if it were not for the DLC, perhaps Bush I wins in '92. And, following that theory, congress still falls to the GOP in '94 for the same reasons it did in reality. Then we have the 90s with a GOP congress and President.

Is it the DLC, or is it supressed voter turnout and the candidate with the best marketing manager who wins?

Clinton appealed to a very wide array of the population, the policies he advocated being a major reason why.

... I got the sense here that any DLC candidates in this thread was being perceived as not "right" for our times, and therefore, "wrong",

Don't let small internet communities make you think the outside electorate feels as they do.

But, it seems that a significant number here sure do.

According to Pew Research, the DLC has ceased to exist outside their DC office:

Today, the council has almost no constituency within the Democratic Party. About every five years, the Pew Research Center conducts a public opinion survey to sort out the country’s major ideological groupings. In 1999, Pew found that liberals and New Democrats each accounted for nearly one-quarter of the Democratic base. By the next survey in 2005, New Democrats had completely disappeared as a group and the liberals had doubled their share of the party. Many moderates, radicalized by President Bush, now define themselves as liberals.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/28/opinion/28scheiber.html?ex=1343275200&en=bcac9686ea5eb75b&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

New DLC members accounted for over half the new house seats in 2006. The DLC won governors races in the last two years. The current Dem frontrunner is DLC.

Only one new Dem senator was elected in 2002. Yep, DLC.

The nominee in 2000 was DLC
The nominee in 2004 was DLC.

With Clinton gone from the Whitehouse, we certainly see less use of the term "New Democrat" but not people who consider themselves moderate/centrist Democrats.

They surveyed registered Democrats.
The results indicate that about 0% of registered Democrats identify themselves as "new" Democrats, down from 25% in 1999.
Liberals have gone from 25% to 50%.

People do vote for centrist Democrats, no question about that.
But as far as an actual constituency within the Party, the DLC simply does not exist.

With Clinton out of the white house, the term "New Democrat" isn't spoken of as much. The terms "moderate" or "centrist" have taken it's place.

12 years of ray-gun/bush and Clinton's personal charisma (and slick facade) and early corporate millions and Perot are the major reasons why...

The fucking DLC didn't have shit to do with it...

If we had full public financing of elections we could see how the People really feel about the issues.

We don't, we won't...

The only time in recent history that the incumbent President's party has taken a chamber of congress back in a midterm election was 2002 and the Democrats had a 51-49 majority with Bush's approval ratings still in the 70's-80's from 9/11.

I don't think Clinton was the only candidate who could've beaten Bush, who had very low approval ratings in 1992. Jerry Brown might have lost, but I think Tom Harkin could've beaten him.

... and working in unison toward real tasks that that be address by the leadership.

Any monumental task needs an agenda and an organizational process. However, an educated citizenry is worth 100,000 times that. I think I hate marketing sufficiently enough to see very little benefit of these "leadership" organizations. The goal for voters can never be addressed by the DLC or any number of bobbleheads who represent conventional wisdom a la their own "think tanks".

:D

but there never was a better boogeyman. :D

He accepted GOP money and used it to lie about Al Gore.

as Nader.

I guess he's another republican tool, too?

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?messageDate=2000-11-17


"As I studied these results, I suddenly saw the true culprit, the one candidate responsible for putting Bush in the White House. And it was NOT Ralph Nader.

It was MONICA MOOREHEAD!

That's right. Monica Moorehead, Presidential Candidate of the Worker's World Party.

Ms. Moorehead received 1,805 votes in Florida, 1,500 more votes than what now separates Bush and Gore.

Had Monica not been on the ballot, it is safe to assume that at least 300 of her supporters would have voted for Al Gore. Exit polls confirm this fact. Al Gore was the second choice of over half of the Moorehead voters!

A vote for Monica was a vote for Bush."

who believe that the DLC are any longer relevant...

"Comedy is best left to professionals."

and let's have a Supreme Court full of Thomases and Scalias. After leaving office, Bush will finally get his legacy, his wishes, thanks to leftist Democrats.

Oh the irony.

By their presence have moved the centrist and moderate Democrats further to the left leaving statements like yours a possible reality unfortunately but the continued killing in Iraq and more likely Iran as well.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

I don't know why not being afraid of the DLC would get a post deleted. Perhaps it was the comparison to certain disgusting household vermin?

I'm not afraid of the DLC. Does that mean we don't have anything to discuss?

Too bad so many of the candidates don't realize it, and continue to subscribe to the "new way".

I heard, for the first time yesterday, that they are "irrelevant" and "defunct." Kind of like "obsolete/insignficant." I'd be happy to think this were true. I don't agree though, because so many candidates seem to take their script from DLC or "third way" policies and talking points.

:dilemma:

Yeah...it's too bad that some candidates don't understand the electorate eschews the policies of the republican party.

We don't need a republican lite party.

We need the DEMOCRATIC party to stand up for DEMOCRATIC principals.

and support his continued efforts.

I continue to be a little bewildered. What is so hard to comprehend about wanting the DEMOCRATIC party to stand up for DEMOCRATIC principles?

not leaders.

They follow the corporate capitalist party line, the same party line that the majority of republicans follow.

They try to turn it into a "compassionate corporate capitalist party line", just as * was going to be an alleged "compassionate conservative"...

Capitalism can NOT BE compassionate. It's rapacious at its core and any attempt to change that fact is folly...

I was premature upthread. I'm afraid the forces that the DLC slavishly follows are not marginalized or irrelevant so, I suppose, neither is the DLC. They are reflecting the point of view of their corporate capitalist masters...

:hide:

I've had it with you.