Newer New Democrats

In Chicago I read this Joe Klein column on the DLC that, by the dates, must have been submitted before The New York Times published Noam Scheiber's op-ed on the DLC but been published a bit later. They both, however, say essentially the same thing: The organization has basically [UPDATE: the rest of this sentence originally went missing from the post for some reason] outlived its usefulness.

What's more, several "centrist" or "New Democrat" types were around at YearlyKos and they all basically agreed with Klein and Scheiber (who are, themselves, really members of this same political tendency), which I found interesting. The proliferation of centrist groups in particular -- Third Way, CNAS, Hamilton Project, etc. -- plus the broader proliferation of groups doing independent policy analysis (Center for American Progress, New America, etc.) has basically created a situation where the DLC as such increasingly stands out for its leaders' (and in particular Al From's) idiosyncrasies rather than anything capable of mustering broader support.

Comments

The organization has basically..? Come on now, Mr. Yglesias. Alright, fine, I'll read the damn article.

Posted by Gordon Lightfoot | August 6, 2007 5:17 PM

The organization has basically

Basically what? Vanished into thin air?

Posted by Antid Oto | August 6, 2007 5:17 PM

"The proliferation of centrist groups in particular ... plus the broader proliferation of groups doing independent policy analysis ... has basically created a situation where the DLC as such increasingly stands out for its leaders' (and in particular Al From's) idiosyncrasies..."

Most definitely.

And it's important to realize that prior to the new infrastructure being born, the DLC really was indispensable. If you needed that product, there was only one place to shop.

What's changed now is that you can get the same product elsewhere, if you don't like Al From's "optics".

Posted by Petey | August 6, 2007 5:23 PM

I guess the iPhone needs a function that detects if the most critical part of the post is missing.

Posted by John DE | August 6, 2007 5:23 PM

I know this has already been said a million times, but seriously, you need to get your lazy writing the fuck under control.

Posted by JH | August 6, 2007 5:25 PM

This is an argument but the truly crucial piece you're missing, and which migh tmake you rethink things, is

Posted by Doug T | August 6, 2007 5:26 PM

If you folks can't fill in the missing section, you're reading below your grade level...

Posted by Petey | August 6, 2007 5:27 PM

They both, however, say essentially the same thing: The organization has basically

How literary of you, Matthew, using the limits of the medium to illustrate the plight of the subject matter! Or was this a Sopranos homage?

The Indy lives!

Posted by Gregorio | August 6, 2007 5:29 PM

Jesus Christ, this post reads like a goddamn Pinter play.

Posted by Stu | August 6, 2007 5:30 PM

They both, however, say essentially the same thing: The organization has basically

Ah, le mot juste!

Posted by neil | August 6, 2007 5:31 PM

@ Psychic Petey

It's unfair, because Matt is your soul-mate. Not all of us share your psychic "connection."

Posted by Gregorio | August 6, 2007 5:31 PM

"@ Psychic Petey It's unfair, because Matt is your soul-mate. Not all of us share your psychic "connection."

No psychic powers involved. Seriously, if you can't fill in the missing section, you're really lagging behind the other kids at your grade level.

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There was a thread over at Unfogged recently that touched on the fact that Matthew's median comment had gotten noticeably stupider since the move to The Atlantic, and I think that's entirely correct.

Posted by Petey | August 6, 2007 5:35 PM

I assumed the blank space was in hidden text to avoid spoilers. The organization has basically killed Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Posted by marc sobel | August 6, 2007 5:35 PM

Petey,
I think you are being unfair - or perhaps simply optimistic - and assuming everyone will go off and read the two linked op-eds. From this post, I don't think it's at all clear what precisely they have basically done. From a broader context, I suspect it's something about irrelevance or radical diminishment. But it could also be a very specific subset of the above (as the latter half of the post perhaps suggests), or something about actual political toxicity, or something I haven't thought of.

Yeah, I could go read the op-eds; it'd be faster than commenting about how the post has failed to contain Yglesias's distillation of them. And I accept some blogginess at this political infotainment site, for the use of which I am charged a grand total of $0 (though I do subscribe). Even so, I reserve the right to find this dropped phrase to be annoying, rather more so than typos or slang.

Posted by Warren Terra | August 6, 2007 5:36 PM

At least when I'm home reading Madlibs, they tell me if I'm supposed to insert a noun, adjective, or verb. I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with this post!

Posted by Nordy | August 6, 2007 5:37 PM

And it's important to realize that prior to the new infrastructure being born, the DLC really was indispensable. If you needed that product, there was only one place to shop.

I think this understates the difference between the DLC and a lot of the new third-wayers.

From and Marshall, in particular, have made a name for their organization by (a) endorsing Bush's policies, particularly in his international adventures, and (b) demonizing anyone to their left. These are constitutive parts of the organization, though not the only ones.

The new third-wayers have been a lot more careful about the dangers of this sort of cheap positioning. The DLC hasn't merely found itself with new competition, but it has new competition that has tried to put forward DLC product without periodically aiding and abetting Bush and the Republicans.

Posted by DivGuy | August 6, 2007 5:39 PM

Petey is a shining beacon of blog-commentary brilliance, the consummate informed, educated, motivated poster with a blog of his own and a couple oblong marbles rattling around in there.

Rashard Lewis: MVP '08.

Petey is full of cogent insights, for example, just the other day he was saying

Posted by Gregorio | August 6, 2007 5:40 PM

"I think you are being unfair - or perhaps simply optimistic - and assuming everyone will go off and read the two linked op-eds."

My position is that you should be able to essentially sketch in the missing section without clicking the links.

You should have enough background knowledge that, along with the context provided by the second paragraph, you should be able to interpolate.

Posted by Petey | August 6, 2007 5:41 PM

You should have enough background knowledge that, along with the context provided by the second paragraph, you should be able to interpolate.

Exactly. It's notable that in no comment above did anyone attempt to describe how their reading of the entire post was rendered impossible or equivocal by the missing words. The fact that words were missing, and thus a hi-larious gotcha enabled, was all that mattered.

Posted by DivGuy | August 6, 2007 5:43 PM

Petey- STFU. There is a parable regarding Glasshouses you may want to peruse. And by peruse I mean "to pore over carefully" and perhaps take to heart.

Posted by JBF (fka Gregorio) | August 6, 2007 5:47 PM

"From and Marshall, in particular, have made a name for their organization by (a) endorsing Bush's policies..."

No. I think those are the things Matt refers to as their "idiosyncrasies".

From really made a name for his organization by providing services to Democratic officeholders and officeseekers that they couldn't get elsewhere.

The birth of the new infrastructure has created other shops for those services, meaning that you don't need to deal with From's idiosyncrasies to get those services.

Imagine that there is only one soup kitchen in town, it's run by a church, and you have to participate in a prayer service to get food. So you pray because you need the food. Then a second soup kitchen opens up run by a secular agency. Suddenly, you can get food without the religious mumbo-jumbo. That's the situation.

Posted by Petey | August 6, 2007 5:47 PM

Petey, you do raise a good point. MattY could have basically cut out half the post-- perhaps even just mentioned a few buzzwords, written it as:

"Joe Klein and Noam Scheiber wrote about the DLC ... DLC vs. newer Dem centrist orgs like New Dem Coalition were at YearlyKos" and we'd still more or less be able to have the same conversation in the comments. However, much as I do like the comment section, I'm more here for fully-coherent insights and complete sentences from MattY rather than "Centrist Dems and John Edwards 4Ever!" comments from you, even if they are expressed in full sentences and correctly spelled.

Posted by Tyro | August 6, 2007 5:47 PM

They both, however, say essentially the same thing: The organization has basically

I don't buy it. The new groups are too...new. Maybe it happens, but I don't think it has happened yet.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | August 6, 2007 5:52 PM

Has basically become irrelevant. It's really not that hard.

What amazes is me that the sixth or eighth or tenth person to bitch about this still thought they were being clever.

Posted by lemuel pitkin | August 6, 2007 5:55 PM

Petey is just being a bitch. Anyone could get the gist of this post, sure. That isn't the point. The point is that habitually sloppy writing gets annoying after a while.

This isn't rocket science, here. Or it shouldn't be, anyway.

Posted by JH | August 6, 2007 5:56 PM

No. I think those are the things Matt refers to as their "idiosyncrasies".

Right. I don't think we're that far apart. What I'm arguing is that those characteristics are constitutive of what the DLC does, and the new groups are attempting to create a moderate Democratic politics that is not partially constituted in, as Atrios would put it, wankery.

I think that the new groups are attempting something relatively new, because From's and Marshall's wankery was not just an idiosyncrasy, but was key to their group's functioning.

So, doing third way-ish politics without the "idiosyncrasies" is a complicated thing, and it's not clear to me yet whether the new groups will be able to pull it off.

Posted by DivGuy | August 6, 2007 5:57 PM

"I'm more here for fully-coherent insights and complete sentences from MattY rather than "Centrist Dems and John Edwards 4Ever!" comments from you"

Centrist Dems? More like:

Progressive Electable Dems and John Edwards 4Ever!

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As stated, a stupider median comment since the domain name changeover...

Posted by Petey | August 6, 2007 5:58 PM

I remember when Markos announced with much fanfare that he was about to roll out a brilliant plan to destroy the DLC once and for all... then, like a week later, said he had thought better of it, and that was the end of the subject.

I wonder if he suddenly realized that he would have been punching down and not up.

Posted by Steve | August 6, 2007 5:59 PM

Matthew was going to say that the DLC has basically jumped the shark but he realized that the term jumped the shark has jumped the shark so he reached for his Dictionary of New American Idioms, accidentally hit the post button, and thus made the thread meta.

Posted by LowLife | August 6, 2007 6:10 PM

I don't think there was really ever a "Third Way". It's just a rhetorical tactic of ceding ground to the Right to get credibility in political circles for being a "serious person". The way the "Third Way" works is by assuming that any idea the Left would like to implement is too childish and naive to possibly work. The DLC is out because they were more interested in excoriating the more passionate members of their own party than in resisting the predations of conservatism. If the DLC passes into that great blue yonder, that's all the better for the country.

Posted by Gordon Lightfoot | August 6, 2007 6:11 PM

"From's and Marshall's wankery was not just an idiosyncrasy, but was key to their group's functioning."

This is where I paint the scene with different colors. You focus on the sermon and neglect the soup.

While the DLC's optical choice of standing showily separate from the Party was indeed key to the group's functioning '88 to '92 period, since then, it has become an unpleasant vestigial appendage that was not necessary to their core mission.

But prior to the growth of the new infrastructure, Dem officeholders and officeseekers still had to eat their soup at the DLC because there was no place else to get a menu of policy they could both legislate and run on. That legislatable and campaignable detail is the soup that kept everyone coming back, not the idiosyncrasies.

The new infrastructure is providing a new place for Dem officeholders and officeseekers to eat their soup without having to move their lips to From's sermonizing.

Posted by Petey | August 6, 2007 6:12 PM

Or to put it another way, DivGuy, the visible part of the DLC that was publicly Sister Souljahing the hippies for the optics was only the 10% of the iceberg that was above the waterline.

The submerged 90% of the iceberg didn't depend on those particular optics. It was just cranking out legislatable and campaignable detail for a very specific audience.

Posted by Petey | August 6, 2007 6:16 PM

Even though pointing out that something has jumped the shark has jumped the shark, and no new analogy can save it 'til it becomes retro-cool (I floated "hit the Shatner" but it didn't stick), LowLife wins the thread.

Posted by JBF (fka Gregorio) | August 6, 2007 6:17 PM

Has basically become irrelevant. It's really not that hard.

I don't get that from Joe Klein at all. He still think the DLC has a role, and claims that it's just From's combativeness that's in the way. Scheiber comes right out and says to thank the group and tell it it's no longer needed.

What amazes is me that the sixth or eighth or tenth person to bitch about this still thought they were being clever.

They were clever! Harold Pinter, Madlibs...keep 'em coming guys!

Posted by McG | August 6, 2007 6:19 PM

What's your last name, McG? Mine's McGarry. You're one of the jokers who took one of my viable options and left me with Gregorio. Now I have been saved by JBF (dissolute ex machina).

Posted by JBF (fka Gregorio) | August 6, 2007 6:22 PM

Centrist Dems? More like:

Progressive Electable Dems and John Edwards 4Ever!

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As stated, a stupider median comment since the domain name changeover...

Now, see, Petey, if I came to this blog because I was interested in reading your repetitive droning on rather than because I was interested in Matt's writing, maybe I would care...

Posted by Tyro | August 6, 2007 8:07 PM

What's your last name, McG? Mine's McGarry. You're one of the jokers who took one of my viable options and left me with Gregorio.

It's actually Hitler. I need to use an alias, so I chose McGarnigle (from the Simpsons), and then abbreviated it to McG.

Chief: You busted up that orphanage pretty bad McGarnigle.

McGarnigle: You had a pretty good view from behind your desk chief.

Chief: You're off the case McGarnigle.

McGarnigle: No, you're off you're case chief!

Chief: What does that mean?

Homer: IT MEANS HE GETS RESULTS YOU STUPID CHIEF

Lisa: Dad, sit down.

Posted by Ex-McG | August 6, 2007 10:31 PM

I can't tell ... does that count as a Godwin's law violation, or would that require calling someone else Hitler?

Posted by Warren Terra | August 6, 2007 11:09 PM

Matt says Joe Klein thinks the DLC has "outlived its usefulness."

I agree with McG -- I don't get that at all from Klein's article. Klein cites Harold Ford's claim that "if there ever was a time when the country needed the DLC... it's now" and calls it "defensive but accurate."

Klein writes that the Democratic nominee will ultimately "come home" to the DLC:

"But Ford is right: the Democratic nominee will come "home" when the general election rolls around because the DLC has become a crucial support and policy-development vehicle for state and local elected officials ..."

Basically, Joe *laments* that the DLC has become a pariah and disputes the idea that its current status is based on fundamental issues. The point of his article is that the DLC is more necessary now than ever, but guys like Al From have to stop picking fights in order for it to re-assume its important role in shaping the Democratic Party's fortunes.

I disagree with Joe's take on this, but that's what he's arguing.

Posted by Eric | August 7, 2007 7:18 AM

Petey's strong and persistent desire to communicate his mistaken assumption that he's the smartest guy in the room is indicative of

Posted by novakant | August 7, 2007 8:27 AM

"Petey's strong and persistent desire to communicate his mistaken assumption that he's the smartest guy in the room is indicative of..."

...Petey's experience that calling out the stupidest person in the thread enhances the credibility of Petey's overall views.

In Petey's experience, the fact that this strategy can make him look like an asshole does not diminish the strategy's effect of enhancing his credibility.

Posted by Petey | August 7, 2007 1:34 PM