WTF? DNC Sent Top Staff To Help Bush's Poodle Tony Blair Win 3rd Term?

WTF is the DNC doing trying to defeat the only British political party to speak out against the Iraq war, aptly named the Liberal Democrats???

Now I know how Will Marshall got the term Blair Democrats. The funny thing is that the UK Party closest to my own politics and that of many here at DU is called the Liberal Democrats. I am very disappointed - I support Blair about as much as I support Bush. The DLC and DNC are not that different in their support for Blair as far as I am concerned. Blair Democrats everywhere can rest easy now - the DNC/DLC supports you and all your policy decisions about the Iraq war.

ROCHDALE, England, May 2 - Between plates of curry and mugs of ale, volunteers studied tattered lists of registered voters at the Labor Party's headquarters here.

In a corner, examining a computer screen displaying demographic data about the electoral makeup of this hard-fought district, was Karen Hicks, the former
New Hampshire campaign manager for Howard Dean and field director for the Democratic National Committee.

Ms. Hicks's presence here in the final days of the national British election campaign underlines what has become an urgent concern of the Labor Party as it works to ensure the re-election of Prime Minister Tony Blair: turning out Labor voters who seem strikingly unenthusiastic at the prospect of a third Blair term.
.......

In Rochdale, Labor is facing a spirited challenge from the Liberal Democrats, who opposed the Iraq war."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/03/international/europe/03britain.html

How ironic. It seems the DLC and DNC are not that different after all.

interfering in our elections? I kind of wonder about the double standards a little.

moved up, The Conservatives lost, and Labor squeaked to victory with Blair badly tarnished.

Blair would have won anyway but probably would have done more poorly than retaining 60 seats if the DNC hadn't sent in their top Field Director to GOTV against
the Labour Party's top competitor for Parliamentary seats, the Liberal Democrats.

The Liberal Democrats would have won bigger if the DNC hadn't been targeting the Liberal Democratic districts with GOTV efforts. WTF is the DNC doing trying to defeat the only British political party to speak out against the Iraq war???

Imagine that. :thumbsdown:

I support Liberal Democrats on both sides of the Atlantic. Obviously, the DNC does not.

In a corner, examining a computer screen displaying demographic data about the electoral makeup of this hard-fought district, was Karen Hicks, the former New Hampshire campaign manager for Howard Dean and field director for the Democratic National Committee...

In Rochdale, Labor is facing a spirited challenge from the Liberal Democrats, who opposed the Iraq war.

Karen Hicks must be proud to be a Blair Democrat now.

:puke:

Can someone remind me who James Carville helped in Israel?

I find it strange that these countries need our politicians?

This WP article mentions a whole bunch of our Democratic strategists going over there. I don't know if Karen is with the DNC per se, or is a strategist like Shrum, Greenberg (Greenberg works with Carville's polling group...can't think of the name.), Mark Penn, Trippi, others.

Karen was field director for DNC in 2004, have not seen her name for this year, but not sure at all. She was with the Kerry campaign after Dean dropped out.

This article doesn't sound like it is a DNC thing. You need to check further.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/04/AR2005050402092_pf.html

In a corner, examining a computer screen displaying demographic data about the electoral makeup of this hard-fought district, was Karen Hicks, the former
New Hampshire campaign manager for Howard Dean and field director for the Democratic National Committee.

The WP article doesn't mention the "field director" bit. The NYT article also doesn't say that she's an ex-field DNC director either. It does seem, though, that the DNC is involved in helping Blair, if not explicitly, then implicitly. Both of the articles make that very clear.

Let's face it, we're not reading about any GOP strategists or field directors or ex-Bush/Cheney state campaign directors helping out, are we?

I just wish the DNC and their minions would have stayed away from Blair completely. I'm ashamed that any DNC Democrats helped out Bush's Poodle against the wonderful Liberal Democrats.

Gotta get some sleep. Goodnight, DU.

Politics makes strange bedfellows, doesn't it? :wtf:

But in England I don't think they voted for Blair as much as they voted for the Labor party, because isn't that how their system works.

Member of Parliament, not for the Prime Minister.

The British people like the Labour Party but don't like Blair.

Many of the same group have helped Blair get elected in previous elections.

Their ideas are old, stale and dated. Unfortunately, helping Blair win in England doesn't count for much if you can't get a Dem elected here at home.

Time for new blood in Dem leadership.

The Democrats would prefer to help out the Labour Party than see the Tories win.

You have to remember that minus-Blair the Labour Party is centre-left.

Would U.S. Democrats be more satisfied with a Conservative government in Britain? I doubt it.

The Conservatives are moving far to the right alongside their GOP brethren with the help of Rove.

The Lib Dems aren't without tarnish either. They voted against the war only to support it later when public support for the war grew, but when public support for the war fell away the Lib Dems were 'anti-war' again.

The only national U.K. party to consistently be anti-war was the Green Party.

There is no way, shape or form that Tories ever would have won majority according to all analysts and polling so the red herring tyou just threw out,

"Would U.S. Democrats be more satisfied with a Conservative government in Britain?"

is most misleading, isn't it?

And the "tarnish" the Liberal Democrats allegedky have in the UK are not unlike some Democratic leaders in the U.S. that I could easily name, so they have company.

The DNC should have stayed out of it. Period. We have no business supporting
Bush's Poodle. The Labour Party needs to get their act together by themselves.

Tory strategists were travelling to the U.S. to meet Karl Rove for advice on "push-poll" and direct-mail techniques.

The popular vote ended with Labour on 36% and Conservatives on 33%. Everyone thought Labour would win the election by a huge margin (polls showing Labour leads of 7-10%). 3% is not a huge margin, the Democrats were better being safe than sorry.

As an American your interest is to see Blair go down in flames, which is fair enough. My interest as a Briton is to see social democracy maintained in Britain and have Blair weakened at the same time, which is precisely what happened. This election was a good result for me. Blair will be gone within the next 2 years and it means back to business for the Labour Party.

"And the "tarnish" the Liberal Democrats allegedky have in the UK are not unlike some Democratic leaders in the U.S. that I could easily name, so they have company."

If you want to read about the Lib Dems position on the war, here is a link for you: http://www.greenparty.org.uk/articles/182

I agree with you that many Democratic leaders shared similar positions.

I have seen lots of hypocrisy on DU (which I am not accusing you of, btw) in that many laud Bill Clinton as "big dog" but yet criticise Blair in turn. Bill Clinton supported the war in Iraq, even advised Blair to go along with it, I've never ever heard Clinton criticise the objective of the war. Indeed a large portion of the Congressional Democratic Party voted to give Bush* authorisation for war, for which they deserve at least some of the blame for.

Are people going to vote for a 3rd party in Congressional seats held by Democrats who voted for the war? I doubt it, because we all know what would happen. It's all about perspective, Blair is an war-mongering idiot but on the whole the Labour Party is not. The Labour Party has done stupid things these last 8 years, but they've also done things that go beyond the dreams of even the U.S. Green Party: drastic increases in health and education, wealth redistribution, civil unions for gay and lesbian couples, improved maternity and paternity leave, increase in minimum paid holidays, establishment of minimum wage (approx the equivalent of $8-9 an hour) and on top of this high economic growth, low unemployment (3.6%) and low inflation (1.9%).

The closest analogy I can give for the Labour Party is of the Democratic Party of the 1960s. The Democrats at the time had very progressive economic ideas but were at the same time fighting an unpopular foreign war.

.. no matter how much they were against the war.

In general, the Labour Party has done a lot of good things for the UK, and no one in their right mind would want the Torries back in charge (ie. attached at the hip to BushCo).

Lesser of Evils, it was bad ENOUGH results that Blair will be stepping down soon. The LibDem's made a fine enough showing that their day will come, but not now. Just like when people keep harping to me that "there's no difference between the Repubs/Dems!" and end up voting for neither or some smaller third party that has no chance. I hate to paraphrase Reich Marshall Rumsfart, but for the forseeable future "you run with the parties you have, not the parties you want". In the case of the UK, the goal was to keep the Conservaties OUT of power, so Labour was the best option.