The DLC is shutting its doors after 25 years?!?!

The Democratic Leadership Council is expected to shut this week after a 25-year run. The organization has long touted itself as a proponent of “new” Democratic thinking and a “third way” between hardcore liberalism and staunch conservatism.

The DLC reach its heyday in the early 1990s, becoming an intellectual home for many “New Democrats” such as former House Leader Richard Gephardt, ex-vice presidential candidate Joe Lieberman, former Vice President Al Gore and, most famously, President Bill Clinton.

After the rise of Reagan Republicanism in the early 1980s, the DLC was formed in 1985 to pull Democrats back to what the group viewed as the political center. It focused on appealing to middle-of-the road voters wary of the liberal excesses of the 1970s and 1980s. The DLC was seen as more supportive than party liberals toward free trade and free markets and it took a more skeptical view of many government social programs.

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The potential demise of the DLC would come just months after moderate Democrats suffered terribly in the fall congressional elections. The so-called Blue Dog Democrats lost nearly half their 46 members, mostly in the South and Midwest.