The Democratic Party is a MODERATE party

The conventional wisdom among many Democrats (and particularly hear at DU) is that Joe Lieberman’s campaign is lagging due to the fact that he is too conservative for most Democrat’s tastes. The party is dominated by liberals, and their dislike of Lieberman’s centrist brand of politics must be dooming him. I will admit that I subscribed to that theory until recently.

But if liberals really did dominate the party, wouldn’t liberal candidates be leading the pack of presidential contenders? The current reality does not confirm this.

One of the leading candidates, John Kerry, who committed the cardinal sin as seen by many liberals of supporting Bush’s Iraq resolution, is a member of the Democratic Leadership Council. The DLC, an organization which advocates moderate politics, is the bane of liberal Democrats.

Another frontrunner, Howard Dean, has a record of fiscal conservatism. Although he has been criticized by the DLC for his rhetoric about Bush regarding the war in Iraq, his record as Governor of Vermont seems to be in line with DLC policies of cutting taxes and cutting spending.

Although Retired General Wesley Clark has only been a candidate for about two weeks, he has already made a big splash. He is leading in some national polls, has raised over $2 million, and is gaining support of Democratic members of Congress. But Clark has raised money for Republicans just two years ago, come out in favor of school vouchers, and even admitted to voting for Ronald Reagan.

These three men are certainly not conservatives. But they are not liberals either. They are moderates. They are centrists. And they are garnering more support from Democrats than their more liberal opponents.

This leads me to the conclusion that the Democratic Party is actually a moderate party, not a liberal party. The reason that Lieberman is doing so poorly is not policy, it is the fact that he is boring, he doesn’t look presidential, and is just not that inspiring a guy. Lieberman is probably to the right of a majority of Democrats, but Clark, Kerry, and Dean are not.

Good analysis! Lieberman's biggest 'sin', to me, is that he could put a meth addict into a coma! :thumbsup:

Lieberman's big sin for me is how quickly he folded to the bastards over the Florida mess in 2000. I probably agree with him on more domestic issues than I disagree with him on. But he's not a fighter. He's just more of Gore. Tin ear, tone deaf, dignified, and too damn flexible.

What distinguishes Clark and Dean is not where they fit on the one-dimensional sliding scale of left-right, but where they take the moral high ground and offer real leadership. Dean is painfully honest in stating that we have to repeal ALL of the Bush tax-burn disaster. Clark is hands down the single most eloquent candidate I have ever heard in my life time. He transcends politics.

Graham also has some of those same leadership qualities, but isn't quite as charismatic as Dean and Clark. Let's face it, Wesley simply looks better in a Speedo.

If they represented the rank-and-file, then they wouldn't have sent the Party down the plughole in '02.

They were elected by the rank-and-file. And these are the same type of people who were in charge when Clinton was elected in 1992 and reelcted in 1996.

Why are these rank-and-file party members choosing moderates as their leaders? And why are they splitting thier support among three moderates ans shunning the liberal candidates?

Most everyone knows that it is better to elect center-left Democrats than no Democrats at all.

that a liberal can't get elected. So we all play the damn game and vote for moderates that we think the electorate can swallow instead of for the truly progressive candidates we would prefer.

DV

Youre right.

We nominated a centrist in 1992 and 1996 and won.

no one was going to beat Reagan in '84, and Clinton got more than a little help both times from the guy with the ears.

He may not have been a liberal, but he played one on TV.

:shrug:

And that was bad. We cant allow the bastards to lie about what liberalism is thats the problem.

that any self-respecting liberal is going to obviously care about civil liberties - I'm a member of the ACLU too - but Freddie's statement made it seem as if membership automatically makes one a liberal. Do centrists not care about civil liberties?

But the ACLU takes some positions that are far to the left of the vast majority of American voters. Look what happened with the "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegience ruling. Not many elected Democrats, even the liberal ones, supported that ruling.

if the ACLU took politically unpopular stances, I asked if centrists cared about civil liberties.

For the record, I don't think that being a centrist means that you don't care about civil liberties, but does the phrase "under God" in the pledge infringe on them? You betcha it does, and the fact that "not many elected Democrats, even the liberal ones" supported that court ruling changes that not a whit.

like defending KKKers denied their rights to march.

All that dumbass Dukakis had to do was say something, anything in defense of the ACLU. Tossing Goldwater's quote back at Bush -- "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, blah, blah" -- would've done nicely. Instead, he acted befuddled and annoyed, as if he couldn't fathom why Bush kept bringing it up.

granted, the ACLU does protect some civil liberties. But they also support entitlements, which I do not consider to be a part of the civil liberties umbrella, namely gay rights and affirmative action. I support both of these, but neither could be construed as a civil liberty. The rights to affirmative action or the right to gay marriage, are not considered civil liberties.

The rights to affirmative action or the right to gay marriage, are not considered civil liberties.

Affirmative action and support for gay marriage are both, and simply, correctives for original insults to the rights of two minorities. The lack of a level playing field based on racism and the lack of gay marriage rights are both properly understood as violations of civil rights.

Civil LIBERTIES, no.

What's the distinction you're making?

He was accused. And true to form, he didn't counter with a defense or even a few reasons why he was a member. Bush made the charge as if Dukakis belonged to a coven of moon-worshippers, and the dumbbell didn't even seem to realize he was being smeared. He fell for a tactic as lame as Smathers "practicing lesbian" trick. He was hopeless.

Looking into the polling data, it suggests that Perot was not a spoiler for Bush or Dole, and he in fact pulled votes from the both of them.

Again, wouldn't be a problem with a sane voting system... :D

usually by republicans trying to discredit clinton's wins.

the truth is while, a larger number of perot voters may have been republicans or those that tended to vote republican, a large number were also democrats. perot took votes from clinton as well as bush I.

perot had a lot of support for a while and was matched evenly with clinton at first. then finally he dropped out and re-entered, and never could pick up the momentum he had before. by this time many had already gone toward clinton, but many were absolutely fed up with bush I.

(barely in 92) but not his policies

If what you say were true, then why did Gore lose the 2000 election?

History is plainly on the side of those who say that both parties have to campaign toward the center. There's nothing but wishful thinking and fantasy on the other side of the argument.

you should read up on how that really happened.

This article from The Progressive has an interesting viewpoint on how and why the Democratic Party is increasingly shifting to the right.

Behind the DLC Takeover
By John Nichols

At the national convention of a major political party, an ideologically rigid sectarian clique secures the ultimate triumph. It inserts two of its own as nominees for the Presidency and the Vice Presidency. Heavily financed by the most powerful corporations in the world, the group's leaders gather in a private club fifty-four floors above the convention hall, apart from the delegates of the party they had infiltrated. There, they carefully monitor the convention's acceptance of a platform the organization had drafted almost in its entirety. Then, with the ticket secured and with the policy course of the party set, they introduce a team of 100 shock troops to deploy across the country to lock up the party's grassroots.

This is not some fantastic political thriller starring Harrison Ford or Sharon Stone. This is the real-life version of Invasion of the Party Snatchers--with the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) burrowing into the pod that is the Democratic Party.

Founded in the mid-1980s with essentially the same purpose as the Christian Coalition--to pull a broad political party dramatically to the right--the DLC has been far more successful than its headline-grabbing Republican counterpart. After Walter Mondale's 1984 defeat at the hands of Ronald Reagan, a group of mostly Southern, conservative Democrats hatched the theory that their party was in trouble because it had grown too sympathetic to the agendas of organized labor, feminists, African Americans, Latinos, gays and lesbians, peace activists, and egalitarians.

"We have all these progressive Democrats here ready to fight on issues of economic and social justice, Democrats who know these are the winning issues and who know that when we fail to run on them we lose," said Representative Jesse Jackson Jr., Democrat of Illinois. "But, in the leadership positions of the party, we have the DLC trying to pull us in an entirely different direction."

Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone echoed Jackson's view. "There are forces within the Democratic Party who want us to sound like kinder, gentler Republicans," he said. "I want us to compete for that great mass of voters that want a party that will stand up for working Americans, family farmers, and people who haven't felt the benefits of the economic upturn."
Copyright © 2000 by The Progressive, Madison, WI.

http://www.progressive.org/nich1000.htm

:kick:

That article is filled with ridiculous claims about how the DLC "seized" this, and "grabbed" that without actually explaining HOW they seized and grabbed. According to that piece:

1) Somehow, it doesn't say how, the DLC grabbed control of the platform committee.

2) Clinton, the leader of the DLC at the time, abandoned the DLC. The proof of this Clinton started talking about "people", a sure sign of a populist DLC-denunciator.

Those issues seem to be in line with the DLC.

Is there a point to your post? An argument being made? Or is it just random facts?

that Clinton did not run on DLC rhetoric in 1992.

The article you link to says:

"How did the DLC become so powerful? In part, by grabbing hold of party machinery and hanging on for dear life. As far back as 1988, just three years after the organization's founding, DLC-ers mounted a full-scale effort to reshape the party. First, they engineered the development of the Southern "Super Tuesday" primary in an unsuccessful attempt to secure the Presidential nomination for a Southerner such as Gore the first time around. Next, they installed another DLC co-founder, Michigan Governor James Blanchard, as chair of the party platform committee."

It doesn't explain HOW the DLC "engineered the development of the Southern "Super Tuesday" primary". Did the DLC wave their magic wand? Did they drug the other Dems?

Exactly HOW did the DLC "engineer" Super Tuesday? Why did ALL the other Dems go along with it?

A coalition from the moderately liberal and/or socially conservative but pro-labor working class to the liberal and VERY liberal left.

We join together to form a constituency, around shared values and issues, like the dignity of labor, the right to a decent wage, freedom of expression, civil rights, women's rights, etc.

It is completely normal and healthy in primaries to have a variety of left. liberal, and centrist candidates.

I will support liberal, anti-war, and leftist candidates as id my ROGHT--ypu can support Lieberman for all i care.

In the end, the winner will have to work to hold the constituency together for the General.

Twas ever thus..

But for some reason only the moderate ones seem to be prospering.

.

I believe that the Party is Moderate and Progressive, but I've never felt that it was Liberal.

I disagree about Lieberman though, he shares many of the same views as the Neocons which puts him to the right of center.

Too left of center for some and not far left enough of center for others....


It is definitely not as left of center as the Republicans are to the right of center or it would be an anarchist party....

Just as center of right is moderate for Republicans.

Because it sure seems to me that they've embraced a lot of right-wing dogma and called it "centrist" or "moderate".

... when you stand at the left edge to look at it.

Clark does not support school vouchers. He said that they might be used in exceptional cases only. He is a strong supporter of public education. Of course, that's a moderate position.:-)

He is not taking the "the only purpose of school vouchers are to destroy public education" that is often spouted by liberals. Just a few weeks ago Diane Feinstein was lambasted by many on this board for her support of a school voucher program in in DC. Despite that may Democratic elected officials in DC wanted the program.

As I pointed out in another thread, Americans are 40% self-identified 'moderates', 18% 'liberal' and 35% 'conservative', the remaining 7% 'other'. Obviously, the liberals are not in the Repuke party. Therefore, we are a center-left party, but we are NOT a 'liberal' or leftist party--- those days are long gone.

Whats my role as a liberal democrat who admires all the great democrats of the past. I dont know what to say or how to feel but I feel, theres something that makes me wanna stay in the party, people like Kucinich who I know you think doesnt have a chance, people like FDR, RFK, and Wellstone who appealed to justice and doing well for people. I would had been a Debs like socialist probably if I had lived before FDR's election.

The status quo today is an Oligarchy. Economic Power and wealth are concentreated in fewer and fewer hands, while more and more people are left out of the American Dream. The same Elite who have the money have bought the political system and government.

If the Democrats continue to ignore this reality, they are not centrists or moderates. They are enabling an extreme agenda.

And I do not suspect that they will in 2004.

The status quo today is an Oligarchy. Economic Power and wealth are concentreated in fewer and fewer hands, while more and more people are left out of the American Dream. The same Elite who have the money have bought the political system and government.

If the Democrats continue to ignore this reality, they are not centrists or moderates. They are enabling an extreme agenda.

wearisome, injustice, and moderation which are the three principles that support compensational government. I'm running for President, and I come from the Aristocratic Wing of the Aristocractic Party. But I don't really need your vote..:evilfrown:

?

being a moderate to me means compromise, middle of the road, working with the other party to create a political agenda. If our party was in power and represented liberal principles, moderates would have an important role to play. But the most conservative regime in modern history is now in power, and our party has compromised basic principles like national healthcare, democratic governance, and opposition to all of shrub's taxcuts.

Now our party has become so watered down it is impossible for me to even look at Kucinich, Dean, or Kerry and see reformers. What I see are moderates adrift in a neo-conservative flood. Democrats need a tide of our own to reverse this course of political events, and moderates are not going to help us do this!

You can't accomplish squat if you can't get elected. You can't get elected if you can't appeal to the mushy middle. You can't appeal to the mushy middle unless you can at least come off like a moderate.

This fantasy that some great lefty messiah is going to come and turn the country around on a dime is KILLING US!

this is why they have given up voting! To DINOs the word liberal means unelectable, Dukakis, it means countercultures in a pear tree. To me it means giving people the right to elect their President, providing uninsured workers with high-quality healthcare, and it means not bowing down to the will of corporate America..even if we lose an election.

The Democrats did not lose because of liberals in 2000, and they did not lose because of liberal principles in 2002. Democrats have never lost because they were too liberal, they lost because they were running against popular incumbents as in 72 and 84, because they ran on vague ideals not issues as in 88, or in 2000..because the people simply don't elect the President.

I agree that there is no messiah who will save us. Only an alternative vision will save our party now, people don't just want a Democratic Party but also a democratic party. Reform doesn't always mean pissing and crying for big daddy, it means busting up the monopolistic power companies and regulating the utilities. It means providing a democratic government that is honest and accountable to the people. If that is a losing idealogy, then we come from different sides of the track.

Dukakis wasn't particularly liberal. He was unelectable because of the extraordinarily vicious primary battles that led to his nomination. Litmus tests and personal attacks were flying everywhere, and only someone who could be all things to all people all the time could survive. Hence, Dukakis, who "went in a pig and came out a sausage" as they say. There is a lesson here for us all . . .

The Democrats (meaning Gore, I suppose) didn't lose in 2000. Both candidates ran centrist campaigns. Gore won, but the Florida vote was close enough (thanks in part to Nader) for the state Republican officials to obfuscate the issue and for the Supreme Court to hand the electoral votes and the election to Bush.

In 2002, we had basically no chance. The way the Republicans had cynically used the 9/11 tragedy to make Bush look like a hero made it impossible for us to win, no matter what we did. In hindsight, it would have been better to have been stronger on our principles, but nobody knew then how quickly the paranoid/fascist atmosphere would dissipate or how badly Bush would bungle Iraq.

The point about Stevenson, McGovern, and Mondale is not just that they lost, but that they lost so thoroughly. The fact that their opponents were popular (and Nixon wasn't all that bloody popular) is insufficient to explain the way they got crushed, like Goldwater in 64. Clinton was popular in 1996, but Dole did a lot better than any of the above. Look at the numbers and the electoral maps. When either party runs to its base in a presidential election, that party gets killed.

As for sides of the track, reality isn't dependent on your side of the track or mine. Reality doesn't give a damn what either of us wants. Reality cracks the whip and we make the trip, if we want to have any hope of making meaningful changes in the way this country is run. Ideals don't win elections, and wishing it's so won't make it so, even if you wish real hard.

Since they are supporting moderates like Dean, Clark, and Kerry for President.

You're in favor of some Democratic party principles but not others?

What "moderates" your Democratness? What makes anyone a Democrat?

In the American winner-take-all system of politics, there isn't room for more than two parties. A third party on either end of the spectrum simply hurts its own agenda in proportion with its own success. If successful enough, it turns the mainstream party on the opposite side of the spectrum (the Republicans if you're a Green, for example) into the ruling party, a la the PRI until recently in Mexico.

If you want a viable party that will satisfy you with its liberalness? Here's the only way to get it. Help the Democrats to victory after victory until it becomes the ruling party. By the time the GOP is completely atrophied, the Democrats will be ready to split into a liberal and conservative wing, the way the Democratic Republicans did before Jackson (after the Federalist Party died). By then, the nation will have moved well to the left, because the party in power sets the agenda and frames the issues, so the left wing of the Democratic Party will be pretty darned left.

Sound like a fantasy? Well, maybe it is. But it's merely improbable. Moving the country leftward by helping the Republicans isn't improbably, it's just plain impossible. If you want to wait until the Republicans split into their left and right factions, be aware that by then the country will have moved so far right that "left" will mean some extremely limited political debate and an occasional election, just to keep up appearances.

hahahahahahaha...that is so rich

Help the Democrats to victory after victory until it becomes the ruling party.

And just how long was the party the RULING party in the period they didn't do anything?

hahaha! :mad:

The period of desegregation? The period that advanced women's rights? The period of affirmative action? The period in which abortion became legal? The period of the Great Society and the welfare state? The period in which church and state were finally separated?

We WEREN'T the ruling party under Clinton. You have only to look at the way Dixiecrats like Nunn blocked the gays in the military initiative to see that.

Honest to God, not-everything is always nothing to you people.

then we should get the conserva-Dems out of the party??

SOUNDS GOOD TO ME! :bounce:

In Bizarro-world.

I sure wish you would respond to the substance of other people's posts, instead of looking for debater's points to make.

Abandoning labor, quality education,,,,giving more and more power to corporations,,,Have a hard time connecting it to the Party of FDR. Have we all gotten selfish? We're gradually abandoning "the least of these." Heartbreaking.

......a small 'c' conservative party.

Even a moderate left-of-centre party would be strongly advocating universal health care and standing up for workers rights.

Further a moderate party would not have given any comfort to Bush in his rush to war.......and certainly wouldn't have condoned members voting for it.

That said, it's obvious that the political pendulum has swung far to the right over the past few years.........not only in the US, but here and in Europe. Moderate parties holding to their social platforms of a decade ago would seem quite radical in the current climate.

I'll not argue about moderation, but according the Lieberman's dlc Dean is a raging lefty.

fits in with the republicans.

so he doesn't fit in well, but it is a fit.

He opposed gun control and opposed large increased in spending on social services.

... the facts AND demographics of the matter are that the 'liberal party' that I see such a great wailing and gnashing of teeth about has been dead for close to a generation, if not longer. We are fundamentally a centrist party that swings slightly left or slightly right, but we have not been a 'classically liberal' party in many, many years.

You don't have to LIKE it, but the only place your DENIAL is going to get you (and the rest of us) is defeated in November 2004!

Thomas Jefferson is historically well known to be the ideological founder of the Democratic Party. If you read Jefferson, you will find that his ideas are so unapologetically flamingly liberal that he is far to the left of Dennis Kucinich.

Our party has been hijacked by the right, which is another word for under corporate control.

I'm not talking about the party of 200 years ago. I'm talking today. None of the liberal candidates are haveing any success, yeat the moderate ones are.

corporate media has duped people into becoming conservative, and convinced people to support politicians and policies that are against their own interests.

because corporate media has duped people into becoming conservative, and convinced people to support politicians and policies that are against their own interests.

because corporate media has duped people into becoming conservative, and convinced people to support politicians and policies that are against their own interests.

because corporate media has duped people into becoming conservative, and convinced people to support politicians and policies that are against their own interests.

because corporate media has duped people into becoming conservative, and convinced people to support politicians and policies that are against their own interests.

This is your brain: :)

This is your brain on television: :nuke:

Any Questions?

First, from a purely philosophical point of view one might argue that the Democratic Party is really the conservative party. This is true if you think of "conservative" in (one of)its classic definitions: one who wants to save or preserve the status quo. Certainly after 70+ years Social Security is status quo for most Americans as is Medicare and many other social innovations of the past 30,40+ years. Democrats want to preserve and save these status quo programs. (This is even more apparent given the fact that the "Republican" Party is truly seeking radical change in policies at this time.)

Second, throughout the course of U.S. history the two major parties have each trended to the moderate center with the Dems more to the left and the Repubs more to the right. I guess its the character of the American people as a whole to seek the middle ground. Or conversely one might say that the two opposing forces of liberal progressivism and corporatism compromise somewhere near the middle most of the time. However, time after time third parties have arisen to represent the more extremes of both parties. The Dems and Repubs have survived by co-opting the agenda of its more radical twin, absorbing it, making some changes and then moving back to the center.

Maybe now for the Dems it is our time to really move back towards the left.

The Right and the Far Right. We belong to the Right. I guess that's better than the Far Right.

I'll certainly take Right over Far Right...but I choke on it.

I much prefer center left. I can live with that easier. All we have to do is compare and contrast Clinton v. Bush on abortion, civil rights, environment, multilateralism, militarism, court nominees, race and ethnic issues, religious freedom...etc. etc.

Yep...as accursed as some of us believe the DLC is...I just wish we had Clinton's safety net back. Even if I didn't believe in everything he did...I could count on him fighting the more ludicrous Right-Wing clap-trap.

Only those on the FAR left do.

And also... I don't see how Howard Dean's plan to repeal the tax cut completely to fund new programs can be considered fiscal conservatism.

He opposition to gun control and recieved a 100% rating form the NRA.

...the democratic party is a center-left party overall, when you balance out the activists with the relatively more conservative, or moderate, leadership in Washington and in the party overall. The electorate as a whole, I'd say, are centrist.

So centrists win in the general election, liberals (at least so far) don't. And the preferred candidates of the (center-left) democratic party tend to be more centrist because most democrats are trying to choose a candidate who has the best chance to win in the general. I believe that's why moderates are leading in the polls, and liberals not. Makes sense to me.

I WANT BUSH OUT. My main concern right now is damage control. If it takes a DLC-er to do that, so be it.


-ph :smoke:

The selection criteria many people apply to candidates are not strictly ideological.

Many supporters are likely choosing the candidate they agree with often but also see as a strong candidate to run against GWB*.

The candidates you mention are fairly liberal on some issues and more conservative on others. If that is what defines a moderate then the term applies. Of course then, all of the candidates would qualify as moderates.

No one is running on a platform of "workers owning the means of production" or "from each according to his gifts and to each according to his needs". There is no socialist or environmental radical in this field of candidates.

I am completely OK with that. Does that make me a moderate too?

That's my opinion. The Democrats have a good number of good liberals, but they get bogged down by those unwilling to go with them. Even if someone like Kucinich (about as left as a Dem gets probably) does get elected, there are plenty of conservative liberals in the Democratic party to bog down his Dept. of Peace of universal health care.

Kerry is about as liberal as a mainstream (meaning electable by the masses) Democrat can get, and that's why I like him so much. A lot of times, you have to choose between the electable centrist (nothing wrong with centrists, except when they have "centrize" aka compromise with a rather extreme opponent) and the unelectable liberal. Kerry's somewhere in between here. He's totally electable, easily stands against Bush, and has more than enough liberal credentials (environment, women's rights, abortion, gay rights, small business) to make some headway for liberals in the Democratic party. I see him as a window of opportunity. I'd hate to lose that.

I can say I register more than a little annoyance at "all or nothing" liberals, who demand either a 100% diametrical opposite of Bush, or nobody at all. That's just no realistic. And they can sit all haughty and elite on their ideological high-chair, but the fact is that that won't change anything in the country. If the Democrat party is going to get rid of monkeys on its backs that allow it to truly distinguish itself from the Republicans, it's going to gradual, not sudden like a ripping band-aid. That's why I believe in ABB, even if it's Lieberman, which I SERIOUSLY doubt it's going to be. Or Clark, despite his Republican ties. Just get a Democrat in, then we'll talk.

Now that was Kool!

I also read the article (9 pages)...and it only reinforced my choice to beat pResident Toy Flight Suit Bunny Pants come November 2, 2004!

WesWinWesWinWesWinWesWinWesWinWesWinWesWinWesWinWesWinWesWinWesWinWes