However, your tone would indicate that you believe Al From to be an inferior breed of Democrat to Dennis Kucinich. Al From should not be thought of so much as an inferior kind of Democrat, just an inferior breed of political strategist.
The fact is that in order to reach a consensus and win election
both the partisans of the DLC and those of the progressive wing of the party are going to have to compromise.
If the Democratic Party stood for everything I would like it to in my wildest dreams it would look like the party of Norman Thomas, Henry Wallace and Jesse Jackson more than anything the DLC would like. I also know that the electoral record of such a party would be abysmal. Therefore, I am willing to compromise.
However, the DLC's approach to the problem is to give the progressive a choice:
- Sit down and shut up; or
- Leave the party.
In 2000, a lot of progressive Democrats (including your humble servant) took the hint and voted for Nader. It was a factor in Gore's defeat. The militant moderates screamed bloody murder and blamed Nader and those who voted for him without ever once suggesting that they should re-examine their own tactics and make progressives feel more welcome in the Democratic Party.
In 2004, many of those Nader voters returned and voted for Kerry. However, From, Reed, Marshall and company are whistling past the graveyard if they think that it means progressive Democrats are going to be complacent while they lead the party further to the right. The reason progressive returned in 2004 had to do with Mr. Bush being a major threat to American democracy, a phenomenon to which the DLC's leaders seem oblivious. Indeed, they still talk about the Democratic Party's base as a problem to be obliterated. Read some of the screeds from From, Reed or Marshall on the
DLC's website. They are the ones being rigid and doctrinaire. This is just foolish.
American politics is basically a two-party system. The progressives and the moderates need each other to defeat the Republican coalition of (1) free market capitalists seeking to privatize everything depress wages and start unnecessary wars of aggression for the purpose of creating opportunities for war profits and (2) intolerant puritans who want to tell the rest of us what to do and what to think. The Republican coalition is a toxic blend of anti-democratic forces, but an effective one. It has become a menace to very survival of American democracy. It will take an improbably broad coalition of centrists, liberals, progressives and perhaps even some sober conservatives to take back America.
It is not helpful for the DLC or any other faction of the Democratic Party to create an atmosphere where some people do not feel welcome. We are in a fight for the soul of America. In order to win, we will need every body on our side of the barricades we can get.