Democratic Centrists Plot Path to Counter Republican Dominance

[papau]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=IK62EJ1A74E9


Democratic Centrists Plot Path to Counter Republican Dominance

July 25 (Bloomberg) -- Top national Democrats, including several of the party's likely 2008 presidential contenders, are returning to the well of ideas from the centrist group that helped fashion President Bill Clinton's agenda in the 1990s.

The Democratic Leadership Council's two-day session in Columbus, Ohio, which opened yesterday, features speeches by New York Senator Hillary Clinton, Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack, Indiana Senator Evan Bayh and Virginia Governor Mark Warner, all potential presidential nominees.

Titled ``Heartland Values, Bold Solutions: An American Reform Agenda,'' the gathering comes at a time when Democrats find themselves with political opportunities, mostly because of President George W. Bush's difficulties on Social Security, the economy and Iraq rather than greater public acceptance of Democratic ideas.

Although polls show U.S. voters are increasingly wary about the direction of the country under Bush, ``alarmingly, the president's deep troubles have produced no rise in positive sentiment about Democrats,'' Democratic consultant and former Bill Clinton campaign manager James Carville wrote in a July 6 memo to fellow Democrats.

``Rather than defending the status quo, which we seem to be pretty good at, we really ought to be articulating the case for reform,'' Vilsack, the DLC chairman this year, said in an interview. ``Our party has got to do a better job of defining itself, of branding itself, so our candidates are not at a disadvantage.'' <snip>

To contact the reporter on this story:
Brendan Murray in Columbus, Ohio, at [e-mail]

Last Updated: July 25, 2005 00:42 EDT

[Larkspur]

1. Looks like they didn't invite the Montana Governor to share his views

Of course his views and practices about returning Dems to power are not the same as the Dem Losership Council's.

[Talismom]

2. Well, he's right about the DLC being good at defending the status quo.

I don't see them being able to do anything else since the whole bunch of 'em are financed by the same industrial elite that put Bush and Co. in. Republican lites, the whole mess!

For real reform the likes of Conyers and Boxer need to run.

[fhqwhgads]

4. hmm...

...conyers and boxer are great public servants, but they would lose badly. the dlc strategy won't work either. is there a candidate and a strategy that has a chance?

[Blue Dawg]

11. What Dean's been doing...

…is, to my mind, just right.

When he too over as DNC Chair I have to say as a “blue dog” I thought that he’d alienate other moderate and populist dems such as myself, but he’s done quite the opposite.

Firstly he’s built up our party’s base of supporters and activists, especially in areas long neglected by the national party, such as the South and upper western states.

Secondly he’s fashion a really tolerant and broad based approach for the party, increasingly the Democrats aren’t being seen as a narrow sect but as a broad coalition (like we where from 1932 till 1968 and the GOP has been since it first employed its “southern strategy”), increasingly the Barbra Boxer or Chuck Schumer wings of the party doesn’t think of the Bob Casey or Evan Bayh wings of the party as “DINOs” but simply as part of the same broad progressive consensus and coalition.

And its really good, as a party we can’t simply opt for “one or the other”, it isn’t true that we have to choose between the DFA or DLC line’s and reject the other, instead as a party we have to be part of a coalition as we where under FDR, Truman, Stevenson, Kennedy and LBJ, not a narrow sect and Dean seems to have realised that.

Most importantly we’re challenging perceptions and defining ourselves as a broad party rather letting zealots on the right or on the left define us in narrow, absolutist terms…

Dean together with folks like “Chuck” Schumer is doing far better than I would have hoped a few months back.

[BillZBubb]

3. DLC: We need to be "better" Republicans.

"If we just appear to business and the public as Republicans, but without the harshness, we can win!"

That's a recipe for disaster--just like we've been witnessing since 1994. If you want market dominance, you have to DIFFERENTIATE your product. You can never win the market by offering a near equivalent choice. The DLC is dangerous to our hopes.

[HereSince1628]

5. ROFL, DLC triangulators want better definition of the party?!!!

In their little elite world of professional politicians they must think that either we have no memory of the triangulation fests of the past 15 years or that Democratic voters are too stupid to care.

They have their heads so deep into corporate coprology that they don't realize there is a groundswell of protectionist sentiments that will make the DLC unable to define themselves away from the republicans. That groundswell could turn into a tsunami if the US continues with its hidden unemployment rate in the low double digits for 3 1/2 more years.

[Todd B]

6. Something that confuses me:

It just confuses me. I mean sure you can win elections by moving more to the right, but why would you want to sacrifice your key Democratic values by doing so?

Isn't that just admitting that "if you can't beat them, join them"?

I'd much rather subscribe to the theory of actually being an opposition party by standing up and fighting for progressive ideas. We should be introducing legislation for health care and education initiatives every day - sure they won't pass right now, but watch the American public turn on the Republicans when they turn down legislation that would improve the quality of life.

Congress is doing squat right now - we need to show the American people that a Democratic controlled House/Senate would be so much more beneficial to our needs then a Republican one.

[HereSince1628]

7. 'cause professional politicians only want to win elections...

and if you look into DLC history you will find that membership in the DLC is elected officials and community leaders. They are an organization of, by, and for professional polliticians.

[Ken Burch]

12. Even that doesn't hold up

because all the DLC wants to do is elect the most conservative Democratic president possible(if they had their way we'd nominate Zell Miller next time)and they DON'T want a Democratic Congress, or Democratic gains in statehouse elections(other than a few governors).

[quiet.american]

8. The main problem with the DLC is their focus

It seems to me the main problem with the DLC is that they're always concentrating on winning the hearts and minds of those outside of the Democratic party and to hell with the Democratic base. Therefore, they end up turning off/failing to inspire such a huge swath of Democrats, that these Democrats, such as women, especially young women, do not go out and vote, or vote Republican against their own interests.

It would be nice if the Democratic Leadership Council would become interested in Democrats for a change. There are enough eligible-to-vote Democrats in this country that if they appealed to them, they would put Democratic candidates over the top every time.

[mikehiggins]

9. That's right, they NEVER learn

Just put up more District pols and their buddies and see how successful we will be.

Oh,wait. We just did, didn't we?

[Oerdin]

10. Some of you folks are in lalaland.

Why don't you construct a few more strawmen to attack the DLC? Some of you seem to be good at it.

[Ken Burch]

13. It's NOT a straw man to say the DLC doesn't want a Democratic Congress

they've shown that over and over.

All they care about is electing a DINO president. period. They think 1994 to 2000 was a frickin' golden age. They LOVED having Newt and Hastert as Speakers of the House.

[Blue Dawg]

14. That's not fair...

...the DLC have their strategies and their policies, same as any other body within the Democratic Party.

To be fair the DLC isn’t exclusively for moderate Dems, liberal Senators like Cantwell, Kerry and Dodd are signed up members of the DLC as is Hillary Clinton.

I don’t except the argument that the DLC somehow harbours a great plan to take over the Democratic Party, its membership is to broad and its mission statement too vague for that to me true.

It has in the past, however, been distasteful when the DLC has attempted to dominate proceedings and impose its own views on the party, but that is not to say they are neither an exclusively non liberal group nor that as a group they espouse moderate or conservative positions.

If you’re looking for a group of conservative democrats then you should look at groups like the “Blue Dog Coalition” and perhaps the “Democrats for Life”, though their only divergence from the party’s normal policies is on that one issue of abortion.

Rather than being conservative or moderate, the DLC is “establishment” hence the reason you find the likes of John Kerry and Ben Nelson in the same organisation. For this reason their often unresponsive and uninventive when it comes to strategy despite having some flare for policy development.

But the DLC’s biggest failure has been the way in which it focused on the power of the central party and the expertise of guys like Shrum and other political consultants while shutting out liberals and populist on both wings of the party and largely neglecting the grass roots and the health of the party at large. Dean and Schumer are reversing this and we have yet to see how successful they will be, but for the first time in a long while liberals fell as though their being heard and populist feel as though they’ve been accepted by the party leadership, the candidacy of folks like Hackett and Casey demonstrate that for the first time in a long while the party is becoming a “broad tent” once again and this is something that the DLC never thought to do because of its tendency towards exclusivity and the concentration of power and authority that made no room for diversity or variety.

The solution to the DLC is not to replace it’s mono-ideology with another further to the left or right but to break down the idea of one “pure ideology” and welcome a broadened, more transparent and more accepting Democratic Party that allows for a variety of opinions as part of a progressive consensus, this seems to be what we’re working towards now and it should be welcomed.