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Edited on Sun Nov-21-04 08:55 AM by fujiyama
By bullying the base around as much as it has, the DLC is risking almost completely irrelevance - not only to the party, but to themselves.
As Democrats continue to lose federal elections, K street will have less and less of a reason to contribute money to Democrats. The DLC's main claim to fame is that they raised a lot of money (mostly corporate interests). That will soon change (in fact I think it has). As Democrats are in the minority in every branch of congress, these corporate interests will feel less and less of a need to give Democrats money. After all, what's the point? You give money to get things done. Democrats aren't getting anything done anytime soon.
I haven't read any articles on this, but that's my guess as to what's going on. Clinton raised a lot from corporate money because he could...and because they wanted things done.
At this point though, the last election proves that tons of corporate money ISN'T needed. Much of the money in this election was grass roots - millions raised from pissed off Democrats and independants nationwide wanting to get Bush out of office.
Let me start off by saying I have no problem with moderate, and even conservative Dems. Some states are more conservative than others. I understand that some Dems have electoral limits. I never expected Daschle to be in complete opposition to Bush on every issue. SD is a conservative state that Bush won by over 20 points. I know that Oklahoma's Brad Carson was a conservative Democrat, but that was fine. I would have voted for him in a minute over Coburn. Granted it didn't matter anyways because the states were almost reflexively voting republican. That's why I understand if conservative and moderate Dems want to form their own group like the conservativ Blue Dog Dems in the House but I'm sick of them having a leadership position.
The DLC is proving themselves unable to set any clear agenda. It's not left. It's not even center. It's just some mushy nonsense about enacting an agenda that's less threatening than whatever the republicans propose. The DLC has no idea that the republican party is virtually a fascist party at this point. They still seem to believe there is some common ground.
The DLC is leading all right - they're leading the party off a cliff.
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