DEMOCRATS LOOK AT WHAT THE DLC HAS TO OFFER-- AND RUN IN THE OTHER DIRECTION... EVEN HILLARY

The DLC stands for something-- but nothing to do with Democrats

All the Democratic presidential hopefuls-- even consummate Insider Hillary Clinton-- will be at the grassroots/netroots YearlyKos convention in Chicago next weekend. When I asked my travel agent to get a friend of mine a hotel room-- "try that awesome place you booked me in a few weeks ago when I went to interview John Laesch," I suggested-- it took her less than 15 minutes to get back to me with the report that every room in that hotel and every hotel like it was solidly booked. It isn't just the presidential candidates and the bloggers. Dozens of candidates for the House, for the Senate, people running for state legislatures... they're all converging on Chicago for YKos.

I bet Nashville wishes they had booked that convention instead of the pathetic DLC convention they got stuck with this weekend. Although Bill Clinton will be there, Hillary knows associating with the reactionary Lieberman/Ford wing of the Democratic Party is toxic. She won't be there (even if her heart will be) and neither will Obama or Edwards.

The ultimate interest group, the DLC is 100% bought and paid for you are a corrupt insider, as unfit for support from grassroots Democrats as any Republican. The corrupt reactionary shill that fronts for the DLC-- along with defeated discredited former right wing Democratic congressman Harold Ford-- is Al From. Instead of weeping that no Democratic candidates will get anywhere near his disreputable conclave, he claims they "
are focused on winning interest group votes... We were organized and always have been the force in the party that looks to the general election and tries to connect the Democratic Party to the mainstream values of the country." Philip Morris? Texaco? Merck? Enron? That's the DLC and that's Al From and Harold Ford and that's exactly the kinds of special interests-- as opposed to the grassroots voters-- Democratic candidates don't want to be associated with.

But there is no question that the energy and passion in the party will be on display in Chicago much more than in Nashville.

"Today, the energy is coming from new voices, new media, new technology and is much more to the left of the DLC," said former California Democratic Chairman and current radio talk show host Bill Press. "Look where the candidates are going. You don't need any further proof than that."

Even Press says the DLC's "time has come and gone"... David Sirota, founder of the Progressive States Network and a longtime foe of the DLC, said the DLC has become "radioactive" to candidates running in Democratic primaries because it only represents 'Washington elites and corporate lobbyists.' He added, 'Now that there is a reinvigorated counter to that-- whether through the Netroots or the unions or environmental groups-- it has lost its ability to dominate the space it exists in.'"

From, while acknowledging that "there will be more passion in Chicago," claims there will be 350 elected officials attending his get together. But he won't tell anyone who they are. The same way Republicans in the KKK or John Birch Society don't want to let non-KKK/non-John Birch Society members know that's their identity group, reactionary Democrats, post-Clinton have now grown reticent to let the cat out of the bag. Harold Ford and Al From and their media hacks can squawk all they want that the DLC is a "centrist" or "moderate" group, but the facts are the facts. The DLC is the extreme right of the Democratic Party. They are pro-war, pro-corporation and wrong on every important issue of the last decade.

In today's NY Times Noam Scheiber, a senior editor of the right-of-center New Republic (often referred to as the New Republican and once a dedicated mouthpiece for the DLC), writes that "Democrats, moderate and liberal, have been bewildered by the group’s post-Clinton agenda. Take, for example, the law passed by Congress in 2005 that makes it harder for ordinary people to declare bankruptcy. The measure’s only obvious beneficiary was the credit-card industry, and most Democrats opposed it. One main exception was a coalition of House members [like Al Wynn] allied with the council. In an implicit rebuke to their Democratic colleagues, these New Democrats declared their support for the bill 'as champions of both personal and fiscal responsibility.' ...Today, the council has almost no constituency within the Democratic Party."

This kind of Lieberman/Clinton triangulation-- trashing Democrats and Democratic values for personal advantage-- no longer plays. As I mentioned earlier today, Glenn Greenwald has a great article at Salon that examines how Beltway Insiders of the media variety twist and distort labels and definitions to keep their fraternity in power-- and to thwart the will of the feared and loathed unwashed masses (the rest of us). It will help you to understand how-- in the face of reality-- the DLC gets to be called "centrist" instead of "reactionary" or "moderate" instead of "right-wing."


UPDATE: IS HILLARY JUST MAKIN' BELIEVE?

BooMan makes a good case that even though she's publicly distancing herself from the reactionary conclave-- and letting her husband reassure the right-wing of the Democratic Party that she's still one of them-- down deep, and not even that deep, Hillary's as much a DLCer as her old pal Lieberman is.