DLC -- Democrats Love Corporations

[IrateCitizen]

The following article appears in the new issue of The Nation, and was written by an advisor to Mark Schweitzer's successful MT Gubernatorial bid this past election. I think it does a good job at showing how DLC policies aren't really "centrist", but "corporatist", and are, in fact, out of step with what the vast majority of Americans want.

Make of it what you will, but please just read the whole article via the link in the title first.


D.L.C.: Democrats Love Corporations?
By David J. Sirota, The Nation
Posted on December 17, 2004, Printed on December 17, 2004
http://www.alternet.org/story/20774/

Looking out over Washington, DC, from his plush office, Al From is once again foaming at the mouth. The CEO of the corporate-sponsored Democratic Leadership Council and his wealthy cronies are in their regular postelection attack mode. Despite wins by economic populists in red states like Colorado and Montana this year, the DLC is claiming like a broken record that progressive policies are hurting the Democratic Party.

From's group is funded by huge contributions from multinationals like Philip Morris, Texaco, Enron and Merck, which have all, at one point or another, slathered the DLC with cash. Those resources have been used to push a nakedly corporate agenda under the guise of "centrism" while allowing the DLC to parrot GOP criticism of populist Democrats as far-left extremists. Worse, the mainstream media follow suit, characterizing progressive positions on everything from trade to healthcare to taxes as ultra-liberal. As the AP recently claimed, "party liberals argue that the party must energize its base by moving to the left" while "the DLC and other centrist groups argue that the party must court moderates and find a way to compete in the Midwest and South."

Is this really true? Is a corporate agenda really "centrism"? Or is it only "centrist" among Washington's media elite, influence peddlers and out-of-touch political class?

The American Heritage Dictionary defines "centrism" as "the political philosophy of avoiding the extremes of right and left by taking a moderate position." So to find out what is really "mainstream," the best place to look is public polling data.

Let's start with economic policy. The DLC and the press claim Democrats who attack President Bush and the Republicans for siding with the superwealthy are waging "class warfare," which they claim will hurt Democrats at the ballot box. Yet almost every major poll shows Americans already essentially believe Republicans are waging a class war on behalf of the rich – they are simply waiting for a national party to give voice to the issue. In March 2004, for example, a Washington Post poll found a whopping 67 percent of Americans believe the Bush Administration favors large corporations over the middle class.

The "centrists" tell Democrats not to hammer corporations for their misbehavior and not to push for a serious crackdown on corporate excess, for fear the party will be hurt by an "anti-business" image. Yet such a posture, pioneered by New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, is mainstream: A 2002 Washington Post poll taken during the height of the corporate accounting scandals found that 88 percent of Americans distrust corporate executives, 90 percent want new corporate regulations/tougher enforcement of existing laws and more than half think the Bush Administration is "not tough enough" in fighting corporate crime.

READ THE REST HERE

[shoelace414]

1. Eliot Spitzer is my hero. :)

[IrateCitizen]

2. Hopefully, in 2 years, he'll be my Governor!

I can't say I've been very unhappy with him as my Attorney General. :D

[paulk]

3. he loses me in the first paragraph

"Despite wins by economic populists in red states like Colorado"

What the fuck is he talking about? He used this same crap in his previous attack on the DLC (from The Nation), and didn't back that claim up with any reality either.

It's good to criticize the DLC - but Mr. Sirota's arguments don't even have a foundation.


The Salazar brothers are not "economic populists"!!!!
Period!!!!!

[IrateCitizen]

4. They're not? Wasn't the campaign slogan of the "other" Salazar...

"Send a farmer to Congress!"? By "other" Salazar, I'm referring to the one that replaced the House seat held by Scott McInnis.

Even if you don't agree with his first paragraph, the meat of the article has some excellent points showing how DLC policies are out of step with how Americans respond to polls on basic issues.

[paulk]

9. John Salazar won his House seat

primarily because he opposed a water bill from the 2002 election that would have sent western slope water to the eastern side. His opponent had supported the bill. It was a local issue. It had nothing to do with the DLC or "economic populism", whatever Mr. Sirota means by that.

On Ken Salazar - once again, I don't even understand what Mr. Sirota is arguing - in his article he attacks the "Third Way" DLC offshoot group - yet, Ken Salazar, who he uses as one of his primary examples in support of his argument, is an honorary chairman of the Third Way group!

http://www.third-way.com/news/salazar.htm

????????????????


Mr. Sirota may have some valid points to make... I don't know. The two articles of his on the DLC that I have read are so faulty in their basic assumptions that I can't take him very seriously.

[IrateCitizen]

10. Thanks for the info -- I didn't know all that.

I do remember, however, that Ken Salazar won a primary against a left-wing challenger named Mike Miles, which would tend to call into question any labelling of Salazar as "populist".

As for John Salazar's win, I do remember reading that it was largely about local issues. His campaign slogan also jumped out at me as referring to a populist bent, which doesn't necessarily coincide with the label "progressive" or "liberal". After all, Pat Buchanan is a populist.

[pmbryant]

5. Apparently Sirota mischaracterizes DLC positions

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/12/debunking_debun.html

From Matthew Yglesias's blog:

It seems to me that David Sirota's latest attack on the DLC and other "centrists" is in need of a response. The problem here is not that the things he says are popular are not, in fact, popular. Rather, the problem is that he's gone off and created a straw man here, attacking the nefarious DLC for positions it doesn't hold. Discussion below the fold.

..

The point here isn't to become a thoroughgoing DLC apologist, and I've offered criticisms of some things they've said. But I try to restrict myself to criticism of things they've actually said. Sirota is creating a disagreement that's 80 percent nonexistent. He and the DLC disagree about trade. I think he's right to accuse the DLC of downplaying the unpopularity of free trade agreements. I think the DLC is right to say that free trade agreements are generally good policy. The DLC's actual general argument about the election -- one that Sirota doesn't seem interested in confronting in any of his voluminous writings on the subject -- is that Democrats can't get a hearing for their economic message unless they do something to simultaneously cool the fires of the culture war and talk in a more compelling way about national security. My analysis is that a more compelling national security message along would do the trick. Sirota seems to think that Democrats can afford to just ignore national security and values issues. Or maybe that's not what he thinks. I would be interested in getting his take on this.

So there are some real disagreements about policy and tactics here, but they deserve to be debated calmly and, above all, honestly. Sirota's attacks are growing increasingly vitriolic and wind up having increasingly little to do with the actually existing DLC and its real merits and flaws.

[IrateCitizen]

6. Maybe he does, but that's just one blogger's take...

... not much different than one poster's take here on DU.

Of course, I readily admit that my point of view is biased against the DLC, because I view them as a group that, while not made up of Republicans, hurts our chances because it largely preaches accomodation with Republican positions and narrows the range of debate.

Furthermore, as a former military officer and member of Iraq Vets Against the War, I am increasingly leery of calls for getting "tough" on National Security by the likes of the DLC and TNR editor Peter Beinart, because it's my brothers and sisters in uniform -- not them -- who will bear the cost of such misadventurism.

ON EDIT: WRT trade, this blogger says nothing about HOW free trade agreements are good or bad policy, nor does he say anything about the broad differences between what the DLC characterizes as "free trade" (generally more of the same of NAFTA), and what many term "fair trade" (which seeks to make trade equitable rather than opening it up into a corporate free-for-all).

[pmbryant]

8. Not just one blogger's take, but a thorough argument

It's my take as well; he just articulated it in full and complete form. Yglesias, who I often disagree with, makes a very throrough presentation that Sirota is criticizing the DLC for positions it does not hold.

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/12/responding_to_r.html#more

To make a long story short, David's post is basically non-responsive to the issues I raised. My post charges him -- and provides evidence -- that he's taken a quotation from Will Marshall's "Heartland Strategy" out of context. There's no rebuttal to be found. I point out that two of the people he cites as proof of the wrongheadedness of DLC strategy -- Eliot Spitzer and Ken Salazar -- have both been hailed by the DLC as pointing in the direction the party should go. There's no rebuttal to be found. In his article, David implied that Joe Lieberman was a supporter of the Bush tax cuts. I pointed out that Lieberman (a) voted against the Bush tax cuts, (b) opposed their full repeal because he supported the middle class elements (i.e., doubling the child tax credit, and a few other provisions), and (c) on the campaign trail in 2004 proposed the most progressive revision of the tax code of any major candidate in the race. David responds to this with an out-of-context Fox News quotation that continues to misportray Lieberman's stance on the issue.

I find this very disappointing, because I very much enjoyed Sirota's recent story about how Brian Schweitzer won the Governor's office in Montana. That was an extremely well written, logically coherent piece about a fascinating event that we all should read.

This latest effort by him is vastly inferior. I just read it myself and it is filled with name calling and questionable assertions, in addition to the problems pointed out by Yglesias.

EDIT: About trade issues, most of Sirota's article is not about that topic.

EDIT AGAIN: About national security, there is nothing in Sirota's article about that subject. Sirota's beef with the DLC appears to be different than yours with Beinart (who, AFAIK, is not the DLC).

--Peter

[IrateCitizen]

11. Thanks for the further info...

I'm going to have to watch this Sirota guy with a much more critical eye, even if I agree with much of what he is saying.

WRT trade issues, I was more addressing Yglesias's reference to it in the excerpt you provided.

WRT Peter Beinart, it's no secret that he was involved with the recent DLC gathering in which Al From urged the party to denounce Michael Moore, saying that he was costing us votes. Furthermore, Beinart's recent article was a pretty apt summary of the DLC position on "national defense" (I use quotes, because it really has little to do with national defense and instead is more about maintaining an American hegemony that no longer exists), and almost perfectly restates similar pronouncements made by Messrs From, Reed, and Will Marshall (of PNAC fame).

Thanks for the info.

[ArkDem]

7. .

Everybody's playing corporation games,
Who cares they're always changing corporation names.

[KoKo]

12. Kick....thanks for the link and the "catch phrase" Love it! n/t