Unsolicited Advice

If at some point in the future Al From gets interested in why Democratic presidential candidates have started snubbing his parties, he might want to look back at this AP story where he attacks the Democratic presidential candidates for snubbing his party, and ponder it just a bit.

It's just not a very nice thing to do. Not a very good way to win friends and influence people. I see very little evidence (for better or for worse) that Democrats have lost interest in being seen as moderate or centrist or in courting self-identified moderates and independent voters. The "radical center" is alive and well at the New America Foundation, the Third Way strategy group is the hottest thing in town, etc. From has just made a lot of people dislike him, personally, in a way that makes Democratic candidates think that hanging out as his events isn't a great career move.

He could have easily downplayed the significance of this, graciously noted that the candidates are busy and have other things to do, observed that Hillary Clinton helped found his organization and Barack Obama's top economic advisor is listed on the DLC staff page, and noted that the Democratic line on national security is now the mainstream one. Instead, he attacked the candidates for "tunnel vision." It's not a good way to make friends.

Comments

Hey, it's his party. He can cry if he wants to.

Or, more accurately, it's our Party, and we can disinvite irritating, self-serving blowhards like Al From if we want to.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | July 26, 2007 1:19 PM

Not a single one of the eight presidential candidates plans to attend the Democratic Leadership Council's summer meeting, a snub that says less about the centrist DLC than it does about a nomination process that rewards candidates who pander to their parties' hardened cores while ignoring everybody else.

That's a news story, not an opinion piece?

Wow.

Posted by MikeJ | July 26, 2007 1:28 PM

Does the current chairman, Harold Ford, have anything to do with this? Or are people not coming mostly because of Al From and the DLC's pre-Ford reputation?

Posted by Random Dude | July 26, 2007 1:31 PM

But Matt, if the DLC didn't have its attacks on Democratic office holders and activists, it would have no accomplishments at all.

Posted by justawriter | July 26, 2007 1:31 PM

Shorter MY: Stop being such a dick.

Posted by blah | July 26, 2007 1:36 PM

I think that this is part of Obama's appeal. He comes off as a moderate, and many Democrats like moderates, but his moderation is more "let's include everyone" rather than "let's exclude everyone who doesn't meet our standards of moderation." At least, that's what I view as part of the appeal; I'm not sure about anyone else.

Posted by Julian Elson | July 26, 2007 2:50 PM

"Not a single one of the eight presidential candidates plans to attend the Democratic Leadership Council's summer meeting, a
snub that says less about the centrist DLC than it does about a nomination process that rewards candidates who pander to their parties' hardened cores while ignoring everybody else."

Hey, Fuck you, Ron Fournier. Who says the DLC is Democratic much less centrist? Maybe "Democratic" and "centrist" in the manner
of DLCer Zell Miller -- who got up at the REPUBLICAN National Convention in 2004 and endorsed George Bush for President?

Zell Miller at least is open about being a traitor.

Posted by Don Williams | July 26, 2007 3:15 PM

Julian - Aye.

It's something Al From doesn't understand, and it's the reason why From and his ilk keep losing elections.

Posted by The Other Steve | July 26, 2007 3:45 PM

The real reason is that the Iraq war has revealed the the DLC isn't really what it has claimed to be. Now everyone knows.

I agreed with much the DLC had to say back when the context was the Democratic Party of the early 80s.

But the GOP under Bush has dragged the country so far to the right that being "centrist" for the sake of being centrist—that is, positioned between the Democratic Party and the GOP—means being farther to the right than the DLC was in the late 80s. It also means being farther to the right on several issues that the actual center of the national polis is. Specifically the war.

Of course, I think it should be said that what went wrong with the DLC is what goes wrong with all sorts of organizations that come into being because they dissent from their peers. If they're successful in getting their dissenting views expressed, then there's not much difference between them and their older peers anymore. Which is what happened under Clinton. But by that point there's a number of people who have a vested interest in continuing their dissenting role because they are big fish in a little pond. There are other people who see the dissenting organization as a hook by which to continue to drag the larger organization away from policies it opposes much more entirely than does, or did, the dissenting organization.

So today's DLC has a number of people who have made a living by being to the right of the Democratic Party regardless of how much the Democratic Party moves to the right. It also has a number of wolves-in-sheeps-clothing that are actual conservatives who are using the DLC to just pull the Democratic Party rightward indefinitely. The principled DLC people who were centrists in the context of the late 80s Democratic Party are marginalized within the DLC in the context of today. Those people are going to be outspoken against this war at this point and they're going to be strongly in favor of relatively radical health care reform. They're not Republicans in disguise. But there's not much room for them in the DLC now.

Or, putting that analysis aside, it could simply be it's all about the war, idiot. The DLC is wrong on the war. Badly wrong. DLC folks are not far from the GOP, if at all, and the GOP is being badly hurt by its position on the war. Democratic candidates know this. Why associate themselves with an organization that is so terribly out of step with American public opinion?

Posted by Keith M Ellis | July 26, 2007 5:40 PM

As Clinton proves, the spirit of the DLC lives on without the DLC.

Only a stake through the heart of the Hillary candidacy will kill it for real.

Posted by Ron | July 27, 2007 3:42 AM

Reading you guys gives me great hope that the Democrats are about to blow it again.

Go Fred!

Posted by Increase Mather | July 28, 2007 2:01 PM