.> The diplomatic way to put it is,
> let's try and achieve some consensus
> and go forward.'

No problemo; and in fact we will even use the DLC method of compromise.

Consider a standard left-right spectrum. If the average liberal Democrat is at a postition of 3, and the average DLC'er is at a position of 7, we will compromise at 3.25. The DLCers of course will recognize the justice of this, keep quiet, and vote as the party requires - just as they required of us from 1990 to 2006.

sPh

You say the DLC wants to win elections. Do you have any evidence to back this up? They've done a pretty lousy job at it since '92.

Max, the problem is there is no "American people," not in any political sense. There are Southerners, and Midwesterners, and people on either end of these, and they all have their own values, united by some loose sense of shared interests and history. And to appeal to some of these people, Democrats need the Harold Fords, need people on the "right" side of just those issues you mentioned. I'm a little bit flummoxed by how you start out demonstrating a keen understanding of the problem Democrats face, and then write the second half of your post.

Crooked cops, crooked lawyers, crooked judges, crooked politicians, crooked doctors, crooked scientists, crooked clergymen -- but no crooked journalists. An amazing record for an amazing class of people.

Why do Democrats "need" people like Harold Ford to win in the South? He lost, while a Democrat won the race for gov by a landslide (every single county).

I'd have a lot more tolerance for the DLC if they delivered the votes we need in the house and senate. They don't now, and they never have. Attacking Democrats doesn't build Democratic majorities, so there's no real reason to listen to them.

Max S

One beef about the DLC is that it elevates right-wing talking points. To some extent this is inevitable in policy disagreements, though some DLCers like Joe Lieberman have turned it into an art form.

You got that one right!

I say it's time for the most progressive liberal platform the Dems can possibly muster.This nation is in deep trouble on many fronts and the voting public knows it!

Dr. Rick Lippin
Southampton,Pa

A black guy loses for a statewide office in Tennessee, a white guy wins re-election to an office he barely won in the first place....
The ignorance and naivete of the Dem base is one of the reasons we lose. At any rate, Bredeson (a "Third Wayer") is different than Ford how?

Crooked cops, crooked lawyers, crooked judges, crooked politicians, crooked doctors, crooked scientists, crooked clergymen -- but no crooked journalists. An amazing record for an amazing class of people.

The truth is the Democrats without both the DLC and everyone to its left are not politically viable as a national party at this time.

I always worry about those who know The Truth. How do you know this truth?

Senator Fulbright, a very respected Democrat once, openly acknowledged that he supported segregation as the only way he could have a say in national affairs by being elected to the Senate.

It was far too great a price to pay. The cost remains.

Rather oddly it would seem Huey Long and the rest of clan that dominated Louisiana politics for generations had no truck at all with the white power advocates. Even in their corruption there was a kind of honesty in the Longs.

Why are you so certain that we need be dishonest? Isn't the main goal these days a matter of raising campaign money and then telling the people what they want to hear so that those with the money can be served?

What exactly is wrong with telling the truth?

Yeah, I will be glad to listen to Ford or anyone else if he speaks the truth as he knows it. If he thinks, for instance, that women should remain inferior, then perhaps that is the way he feels. He certainly speaks for a lot of right-to-lifers but it does not seem they have been overly successful in electoral politics though they have damaged the nation a great deal despite a surfeit of appeal.

BTW I am quite confident that we would have vast disagreement over what a liberal is.

Best, Terry

the DLC wants to win elections so they are tempted to tell people what they want to hear, and that of course is based on what they already think.

This is my biggest problem with the DLC, especially with the organization's name: by definition, following voters does not remotely resemble leadership. And as many commenters have pointed out, following voters who are in turn being led by GOP talking points is a fool's errand.

I am. We need centrists, not people who'd rather attack a Democrat than a Republican to gain political points. If someone gains their cred by attacking Democrats, like Al From, we sure as hell don't need them. Not now, not ever.

It seems to me that there are many more "Centrist Democrats" than there are "Moderate Repulicans." And the DLC shares a lot of the blame for that (and I think it is, at least to some extent, a bad thing).

Also, look at those labels:

Centrist- In the middle, on the fence, indecisive.

Moderate- Level-headed, reasonable, non-extreme.

Just the framing in and of itself makes being a Centrist Democrat worse than a Moderate Republican.

Ugh.

The man happens to believe in the common good. Don't lump him in with right-leaning dems; he doesn't belong there.

I wasn't suggesting that Webb was a card carrying DLCer-- my point was more that there is a lot of ideological diversity among the new crop of Democrats, and the fact that Ford lost his Senate race doesn't prove that recruiting right-leaning Democrats in 2006 misfired.

The second sentence of your quoted portion bothers me, though. I _am_ a dyed-in-the-wool DLCer, and yet I also believe in the common good as best as I can see it.

Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but some of the other comments around here (like the one about "the DLC are paid to help the Republicans win") seem to assume that the DLC are insincere. The biggest part of the neverending bitterness between the wings of the Democrats seem to be neither side seems capable of believing that the other side has anything worth contributing.

Noel

I _am_ a dyed-in-the-wool DLCer, and yet I also believe in the common good as best as I can see it.

That's mighty fine but to equate Jim Webb, who speaks most eloquently about the vast chasm that has widened and deepened between the those at the top of the economic pyramid, like the "suffering middle class"(tm) for instance, with DLC'ers who approve of policies leading to that result is nonsensical.

It's not a matter of sincerity but a conservative philosophy that thinks comforting the comfortable and afflicting the afflicted is the responsibility of government.

Jim Webb ain't yours. He's ours. :-)

Best, Terry

Wait - you mean "like Al From, attacking Democrats" not "attacking Democrats, like Al From", right?

Al From begs to be attacked after all.

Don't we have to ask ourselves why so many Americans think such outrageously stupid things? Don't most of these moronic memes come from either the MSM or the DLC? Admittedly the MSM and the DLC have the time and means to burnish their stupid ideas with faux facts and stylishly paranoid talking points, so they don't seem quite as dumb as Joe Six-Pack. But let's be honest: they are that dumb.

So what do we do? Max S is probably right that we're not "politically viable" without a few million of these fact-challenged "Centrists," whatever you want to call them. But even if it loses us a few votes here and there, I think we'll be stronger in the long run if we work hard to discredit the Center -- to make them look like the dangerous fools they are -- than "dialogue" with them or lend any of them credence by, as Hillary C would say, letting a discussion begin.

By the way, didn't Ford lose? Shouldn't he lick his wounds for a few years before he tries to tell the people who won with good, smart candidates like Webb and Tester how to talk to Americans?

And elevating right wing talking points moves the frame of reference to the right every single time it is done. We desperately need to stop that type of action and move the frames of reference the other direction. There is no reason to play nice with the GOP school yard bully or the street punk.

Jim Webb ain't yours. He's ours. :-)

This is exactly what I was talking about. Why is it even a question of "yours" and "ours?"

Noel

One of the most glaring examples of dem party immaturity is the ongoing feud between the DLC and progressives (self-described "real") in the netroots.

it's nothing less than a dysfunctional cycle of one group calling the other group names. Warmongers. Pacifists.

All the super charged buzz words of angry rhetoric.

And of course the DLC is every bit as responsible for this. that bull moose dude needs to be muzzled.

and... well... some bloggers are just as bad.

now there are some differences but before i get to them i'm going to point out that if there was no backstory here, if nobody had ever heard of the DLC before... if there was no history at all and a brand new dem group burst onto the scene with the policies subscribed to by the DLC, i suspect nobody would be wildly offended by those policies. if i could extricate the policies i find at www.dlc.org and post them into a blog, some might call it a moderate progressive blog, but no one would find those policies particularly distressful.

but. because there is this backstory. all this animosity, reciprocal animosity, if you hear that the dlc thinks we can't take any options off the table with respect to iran, this gets reported throughout the internet like this:

DLC SAYS BOMB IRAN.

GET ANOTHER WAR ON.

even though a great dem like Wesley Clark will say the same thing. no options off the table.

as a policy statement i, for one, see little difference. for instance, webb and tester, two netroots candidates who have been brought up above as examples of winning good, smart candidates, did not run on defunding the war to end the war. and while the feingold/reid proposal may change the landscape of the senate, both of these candidates, in terms of strict policy, are actually, sorry to say it, have more in common with the dlc than they do with the netroots.

now. there are differences. and those differences are STRATEGIC.

it should remain fairly obvious to the dlc that, while there's very little difference between their policies and policies that are supported in the netroots, a guy like clark is OUT THERE putting his neck on the line being an ACTIVIST to undermine the self-perpetuating rhetoric of the Bush administration.

and so it does make sense to a lot of people:

when clark says "we can't take any options off the table," the netroots says "sound policy."

when the dlc says "we can't take any options of the table," the netroots cries:

GET ANOTHER WAR ON.

Mr. Ford should think about this more than a little bit. mixed in with the animosity there is actually some good reasons why the netroots comes to some of the conclusions they do about the dlc. it does become a legitimate question, "if not for war in iran, what is the dlc doing to stop it?"

another criticism of the dlc is this. how can you call it "policy development training" and remain totally unaware of how that sounds.

democrats are not trained to have policies. their policies are formed from life experience, personal values, and study.

this training is of course the third way messaging that dictates a list of things you can and can't say if you want to get elected.

that needs to stop. and it doesn't need to stop because i think the polling done by the third way is incorrect. i think it needs to stop because you end up with a very ugly situation: a candidate who feels afraid to be him or herself on the campaign trail.

i don't think a leftist pandering dem has much of a chance of winning, but at the same time, any candidate who even has the slightest whiff of "being trained" by any group in their party, right left or moderate, is also going to fail just as badly.

The second sentence in my comment (I'll also include the first for clarity,

Have you listened to Jim Webb? Do you know what he stands for?

...was in response to yours:

Webb, the former Secretary of the Navy under Reagan;and Tester, who opposes gun control and gay marriage; are a lot closer to the DLC's line than the netroots. Maybe the DLC isn't so worthless after all.

What caught my eye was the association of Webb with Reagan, as if you could make assumptions on the man because of that.

I am so over the DLC! It seems to me that they have all of the oiliness of the GOP and none of the success.

Jan Knaus

Look, I wish as much as the next guy that a mass progressive movement against the lie that is trickle-down economics was actually going to happen. But it won't. Pushing the party off the left end won't turn out the masses to create a permanent liberal majority in Congress and marginalize the DLC'ers. Not in America today, anyway (and yeah, a lot of that is the Reagan coalition of the hard right and libertarians). And the idea that anyone can win just by being right on policy is extremely naive.

We're better off as a majority that includes the DLC than as a permanent minority that can't even make incremental changes to the system.

What I resent about the DLC is that if the DLC had it's way, we'd have a choice between a hard-right Republican party and an Eisenhower Republican Party masquerading as the Democratic Party.

I think that DLC-ers are people who are basically Eisenhower Republicans and who should be doing the hard work of taking their party back from their own wingnuts instead of trying to remake our party in their image instead.

The Iraq war was welcomed by members of the DLC who had been pumping for it since 1998. Look back at the 2000 VP debate when Joe Lieberman said:

The fact is that we will not enjoy real stability in the Middle East until Saddam Hussein is gone. The Gulf War was a great victory. And incidentally, Al Gore and I were two of the ten Democrats in the Senate who crossed party lines to support President Bush and Secretary Cheney in that war.

Or reports less than two months after 9/11 when DLC members were calling for action against Saddam. They enabled the Bush administration, they didn't challenge it.

The problem is that the DLC has terrible policy, and their electioneering tactics suck, too. They don't have an organizing effort, either, although they do okay at fundraising--from people who don't always have the best interests of the "little people" at heart. You know, those average Joes who make up the majority of Americans, lots of them Democrats (amazing, but true).

In the end, all they're good for is roping in corporate cash.

That's it.

Let them come up with ways to sell the party to corporate donors. They're good at vacillation, obfuscation, mendacity and sycophancy. They're perfect for that job.

Then they can leave the real party business to the rest of us.

You're a lot nicer about what the DLC can do than I am. Cheney said something simliary once, but I'd add it could happen to the horse they rode in on, too.

Call it the Texan in me.

Except what you neglected to say is that Wes clearly explained what he meant by all options on the table - proving that - all the candidates do not have the same plan.

For example:

Clark: "...What we do have to do is have a strategy that uses all the elements of America's power: diplomatic, economic, legal and military. I would send a high-level diplomatic team into the region right now. I’d have no-holds-barred and no-preconditioned discussion with Iran and Syria. And I would let it be known that I’ve got in my bag all the tricks, including putting another 50,000 troops in Iraq and pulling all 150,000 troops out. And we're going to reach an agreement on a statement of principles that brings stability and peace and order to the region. So let's just sit down and start doing it. Now, that could be done with the right administrative leadership. It just hasn't been done..."

God honesty and truth is so refreshing sometimes... Hope he does decide to run, at least for VP position.

Why don't you ask Ned Lamont or the Democratic voters of CT about the attack mode of the DLC?

I'm sure they could tell you plenty.

Sigh, my wife the English major is going to be disappointed in me. I mean "like Al From, attacking Democrats." I certainly never intended to imply that I consider Al From to be a Democrat. My apologies

Just as Lamont was starting to pick up speed:

"...Reid, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton (had) all spoken or written letters encouraging Democrats to back him..."

"...Charles Schumer, the head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, asked (Lamont) him to drop out. Schumer has told colleagues he thinks that if Lieberman lost the primary, it would send a bad signal to moderate voters and might hurt the party's chances of winning Senate seats in places like Montana and Missouri in November... Time

Supportive eh!

.. and then one wonders what this little quote from Schumer meant for Lamont's campaign?

"In the past, if you were a big shot in the Democratic caucus, you got a couple of million bucks," he said. "No more."

He went on, as he sought to assure his audience that their checks would not be squandered, to recount the strict conditions he set with senators and candidates alike.

"We'll give you money, but you have to hire a campaign manager, a finance director and a communications director who we approve," Mr. Schumer said. "They have to toe the line." NY Times

THEN, once Lamont did win the primary, after Schumer asked him to drop out (with a weak republican candidate), did Schumer ask Lieberman to drop out - NO!

That was v. telling I thought...

I think that DLC-ers are people who are basically Eisenhower Republicans and who should be doing the hard work of taking their party back from their own wingnuts instead of trying to remake our party in their image instead.

There's some truth to that, but you've got only got half the story. Since 1932 the southern, more conservative wing of the Democrats migrated to the other side of the aisle, and the process accelerated during the 1960s and was cemented with the election of Reagan. In the 1960s and 1970s, the natural home people who might have been "Eisenhower Republicans" in the 1950s was the Democrats. That's certainly how I grew up.

So describing the Republicans as "my party" is inaccurate-- I'm a lifelong Democrat also, and while we might disagree on issues there shouldn't be any doubt that at the end of the day we should all be on the same side.

Noel

Unless one actually sets out to lose, I think that losing an election is actually pretty solid proof of a misfire.

Fair enough, but the fallacy in your argument is that Ford would have won if he had been more left wing. A two point loss in a closely contested election is not a repudiation of Ford's views.

Noel

" how many times have we heard from the "progressive" wing that the party would be better off without Lieberman, Biden, Nelson and others?"

you're missing the point, we start wanting them out of the party ... when they consistently vote with the republicans on important legislation, and start appearing on the teevee ripping and degrading the democrats.

BTW == I haven't seen many attacks on Biden, accept for the Bankruptcy vote.

Well, its not actually my argument that Ford would have won if he had been more left wing. I'm not well acquainted enough to really say one way or the other.

At this point, as I understand it, Ford campaigned from the right. I don't think that there's any argument he would have picked up more votes by driving even further right. I don't know, but that's my thinking.

I suppose that there's an argument to be made that if he had moved further right, he might have siphoned off a few more right wing votes from his adversary. I think he was probably maxed out, but its possible. But I think the corollary was that as he moved right, he would increasingly lose left wing voters. So hoovering up a few more right wing voters, even if that was possible, would have lost him left wing voters. And its entirely possible that it would have been a net loss.

For the record, I'm not getting into an argument as to whether there were more right wing or left wing voters. My argument is more along the lines of 'lose 50% of left wing voters (or at least a large proportion), in order to gain 2% of right wing voters (or at most a small proportion), is basically going to give you a net negative.

On the other hand: Would he have lost some votes moving left? Possibly. Would he have gained some votes moving left? Possibly. Would the gains have offset the losses? Possibly. Would the gains have been enough to offset the losses of right wing votes shifting to the other candidate? Possibly.

It seems to me that the point is discoverable with recourse to actual voter records and opinion polls. I don't have this information, but I would suppose that someone does. So, if its an issue, I'll avoid dwelling on it and leave it to someone to do the work.

A two point loss in a closely contested election is not a repudiation of Ford's views.

Really? So close counts in American elections? I did not know that. So... what do you get for coming in second in an American election? A complimentary fruit basket, a dinette set? It must be pretty terrific.

Unfortunately, I think you're wrong. A loss is a loss is a loss. Ford chose a strategy and a political position that he felt would appeal to a majority of voters, at the very least, a bare majority.

He was utterly wrong. He failed. The voters repudiated his views. In particular, voters repudiated his views in the middle of the biggest Democratic surge in decades.

It's pretty conclusive.

There are certainly other grounds to argue your position, but frankly, the track records of failed politicians is not a solid one for you.

I hope that you'll forgive my 'funnin' ways, and I'm happy to acknowledge that matters are more complicated, involving not just voter and constituency trade offs, but campaign style and tactics, incumbencies, personalities, scandals and issues both local and general.

It just strikes me that you are arguing from an untenable position. It might serve you better to move your camp and argue from some location that is not a deep dark pit.

BTW I hope this does not stray too far afield but it tells part of a story about a struggle between corporate interests trying to develop a huge green energy resource in the second poorest country in the Americas against a backdrop of government interference:

Guarariri, a shantytown on the edge of San JosŽ, is overshadowed by a gleaming shopping centre from which a stream of waste water flows between houses crammed on top of each other. Several thousand immigrants live here. At first glance it looks like part of Nicaragua, but most of its inhabitants have a job and every house has water and electricity. Life is better here than back home. Guarariri is poor and filthy, and drug dealers sometimes use it as a hideout, yet despite its bad reputation, hundreds of Costa Rican families that have fallen on hard times choose to live here.

http://www1.investorvillage.com/smbd.asp?mb=6514&mn=56&pt=msg&mid=1846248

Togetherness between the Ticas and the "illegal" Nicas seems only to be accomplished by similar circumstances. Want to guess how many Guararirians would find DLC'ers message appealing?

Best, Terry