"Activists Are Out of Step" from 2003 LA Times by Al From and Bruce Reed.

These days, Democrats act as if they're so far gone they've forgotten where they're from.

Every weekend, yet another special-interest group hosts a candidate forum to pressure the presidential candidates into praising its agenda.Some of the candidates seem intent on running applause-meter campaigns, measuring success by how many times they tell the party faithful what they want to hear.

There's one big problem with this strategy: Most of those party activists the candidates are trying so hard to please are wildly out of touch not only with middle America but with the Democratic rank and file. The great myth of the campaign is the misguided notion that the hopes and dreams of party activists and single-issue groups represent the heart and soul of the Democratic Party. They don't.

The fact is, "the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party," as former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean likes to call it, is an aberration, a modern-day version of the old McGovern wing of the party, defined principally by weakness abroad and elitist interest-group liberalism at home. That wing lost the party 49 states in two elections and turned a powerful national organization into a much weaker, regional one.

Democratic internationalism. We respect the right of other Democrats to disagree with our and Blair's conclusions about Iraq. But we cannot accept the claim that being against the war in Iraq is the only authentic and principled stand for Democrats -- for what anti-war presidential candidate Howard Dean calls "the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party." And we reject the idea that Democrats who voted for the use of force in Iraq -- including Sens. John Edwards, John Kerry, and Joe Lieberman, and Rep. Dick Gephardt -- are unprincipled opportunists. On the contrary, they represent the true Democratic tradition of muscular internationalism, and should be respected for passing up the temptation of opportunistically appealing to liberal and anti-war activists, especially in Iowa, the first stop in the presidential nominating process.

...." The tradition of Democratic internationalism combines the willingness to use force with the recognition that America is always stronger when we act with and through alliances and multilateral institutions that reflect our values and interests. That's the tradition that led Edwards, Gephardt, Kerry and Lieberman to vote to authorize the use of force on the condition that the administration pursue multilateral support.

The claim that an anti-war position is required of "real Democrats" or the "Democratic wing of the Democratic Party" is nothing more than an assertion against the evidence of history -- and against the political interests of the Democratic Party today.

Part of this is fairly straightforward. The DLC works to make sure than any Democrat that wants to vote against the interests of labor unions will not suffer because their campaign contributions will be made good by corporate donations. It's a straight co-option of the Democratic Party by corporate interests.

..."It's probably a chicken and egg argument at this point, but the New Democrats found corporate America happy to fund them and make up any losses from more traditional activist groups. Some might argue that corporate interests were behind the movement from the start, but I believe the DLC's corporate ties developed organically and symbiotically.

The DLC's desire to appear tough on defense (represented by support for large military budgets and an interventionist and expansionist (NATO) foreign policy) certainly appealed to defense contractors. And Clinton continued George H.W. Bush's policy of privatizing military functions."