yesthattom (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
yesthattom) wrote2003-06-06 08:33 am
yesthattom) wrote2003-06-06 08:33 am
(no subject)
Middle-of-the-Road Kill
Bad Direction From the DLC
Liberals -- if you want victory in 2004 and beyond, you must forsake your principles, move to the middle, and pray that voters mistake you for Republicans.
That’s the conventional wisdom in Washington today. Its foremost proponent may be Al From, founder and CEO of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC).
DLC "New Democrats" are GOP Lite: cozy with corporate elites, comfortable with free-market fundamentalism, hostile toward unions, keener for tax cuts and defense spending than for public investment or securing the social safety net.
Donning conservative drag has worked for the DLC -- the Fortune 500 fund it generously, as they do the real GOP -- so it’s no surprise From urges liberals to follow him. He thinks the secret to electoral success is luring independents and moderate conservatives away from George Bush.
But he’s wrong.
The key to success in 2004 will be turning out each and every liberal voter, even those who may have sat idle for years. That requires inspiring partisan activists, the grassroots volunteers whose enthusiasm is reserved for the most progressive policies and the candidates who promote them.
From’s poll-tested principles can’t do that. They generate about as much excitement as a Joe Lieberman speech.
"The DLC says it’s centrist, but centrism is wherever the polls say most Americans are," former labor secretary Robert Reich wrote in 2001. "Centrism is unprincipled. Centrism doesn’t lead. It follows."
Or to paraphrase Texas populist Jim Hightower, the only things in the middle of the road are yellow lines and dead donkeys.
George Bush is beatable. Liberals and progressives gathering this week in Washington for the "Take Back America" conference know that. The question is: Will the Democratic Party favor the DLC, which has plenty of money, but is otherwise bankrupt? Or will it adopt the vision, passion and values needed to get out the vote?
TomPaine.com -- Middle-of-the-Road Kill
Featuring "Cracking the Conservatives: Bush's Vulnerabilities and the Seeds of Progressive Revival" by Bob Borosage (www.OurFuture.org).
Bad Direction From the DLC
Liberals -- if you want victory in 2004 and beyond, you must forsake your principles, move to the middle, and pray that voters mistake you for Republicans.
That’s the conventional wisdom in Washington today. Its foremost proponent may be Al From, founder and CEO of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC).
DLC "New Democrats" are GOP Lite: cozy with corporate elites, comfortable with free-market fundamentalism, hostile toward unions, keener for tax cuts and defense spending than for public investment or securing the social safety net.
Donning conservative drag has worked for the DLC -- the Fortune 500 fund it generously, as they do the real GOP -- so it’s no surprise From urges liberals to follow him. He thinks the secret to electoral success is luring independents and moderate conservatives away from George Bush.
But he’s wrong.
The key to success in 2004 will be turning out each and every liberal voter, even those who may have sat idle for years. That requires inspiring partisan activists, the grassroots volunteers whose enthusiasm is reserved for the most progressive policies and the candidates who promote them.
From’s poll-tested principles can’t do that. They generate about as much excitement as a Joe Lieberman speech.
"The DLC says it’s centrist, but centrism is wherever the polls say most Americans are," former labor secretary Robert Reich wrote in 2001. "Centrism is unprincipled. Centrism doesn’t lead. It follows."
Or to paraphrase Texas populist Jim Hightower, the only things in the middle of the road are yellow lines and dead donkeys.
George Bush is beatable. Liberals and progressives gathering this week in Washington for the "Take Back America" conference know that. The question is: Will the Democratic Party favor the DLC, which has plenty of money, but is otherwise bankrupt? Or will it adopt the vision, passion and values needed to get out the vote?
TomPaine.com -- Middle-of-the-Road Kill
Featuring "Cracking the Conservatives: Bush's Vulnerabilities and the Seeds of Progressive Revival" by Bob Borosage (www.OurFuture.org).
no subject
It will all be better once the Empire comes.