Is the DLC the republican part of the party?

[HFishbine]

I had to wait until the transcript of today's Inside Politics on CNN was posted to make sure I heard this right. I had.

In an interview with Iowa voters, one had this to say.

MICHAEL EIVINS, 42, TEAMSTER: I got a -- I'm probably the most (UNINTELLIGIBLE) beyond Howard Dean. I think there's been a lot about the anger and the divisiveness sometimes. I think Howard Dean has brought the divisiveness to this. And my heart just starts to race when I hear -- I'm from the Democratic wing of the party. And I'm part of the DLC. I contribute there. And that's the Republican part of the party.

Did this guy misspeak or did he reveal some little-known truth? Is the DLC the "republican part of the party?"

http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0401/15/ip.00.html

[mot78]

1. He's just stating the obvious

He'll "disappear" any day now.

[democratreformed]

2. If you honestly want to understand, read this

Link: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0401.confessore.html

It helped me.

[Kenneth ken]

3. can't speak

for that guy, but I've said more than a few times on DU that I think the DLC is the COINTELPRO wing of the Republican party.

[bearfartinthewoods]

4. did you read this as if he were a dean supporter?

i read the section of the transcript and i'm not at all sure. it sounds as if his heart may race because he's pissed off at dean's depiction fo the DLC? it's hard to tell for sure because of the unintelligible word but it could be read that way.

[IkeWarnedUs]

5. The DLC is a trojan horse for the neo-cons

Will Marshall was the policy director for the DLC and is the president and founder of the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI), which was formed to create policy for the DLC.

Will Marshall was one of the select people who actually signed the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) statements on post war Iraq, along with a few frequent Blueprint authors (the DLC magazine). He is also an advisor to the Committee to Liberate Iraq (CLI), who's mission is to "engage in educational and advocacy efforts" in support of liberating the Iraqi people. Translation: it serves as another "authority" to support the PNAC agenda, which it does very well. CLI is loaded with PNAC'ers, including 3 of the board of directors.

Although Will Marshall (and the rest of the DLC/PPI) has been pushing a slightly sanitized, politically correct neo-con-lite agenda for years, it is just recently that he came out of the closet with his official PNAC/CLI affiliations. The PNAC statements were released in March 2003 and CLI was formed in the fall of 2002. Like many of the neo-cons, he seems to be more brazen and open than ever before.

The DLC agenda and aliances are not news. Many of the same folks who funded Bush also funded the DLC - not the Democratic Party, just the Democrats who meet their "narrowly defined criteria." I encourage you to read this article from the April 23, 2001 issue of The American Prospect, "How the DLC Does It."

<snip>

Simon Rosenberg, the former field director for the DLC who directs the New Democrat Network, a spin-off political action committee, says, "We're trying to raise money to help them lessen their reliance on traditional interest groups in the Democratic Party. In that way," he adds, "they are ideologically freed, frankly, from taking positions that make it difficult for Democrats to win."

<snip>

Though the DLC offers a nominal $50 membership to anyone interested, its mass base is minuscule. "There's a New Democrat audience of about 5,000 to 10,000 people who get our stuff on a regular basis," says Matthew Frankel, the DLC's spokesman. And with a nonexistent grass-roots presence, the DLC is generally unknown except to practitioners of "inside baseball" politics. Yet the affiliation of scores of members of Congress has enabled the DLC to establish alliances with Fortune 500 corporate supporters, particularly along the so-called K Street corridor of Washington-based lobbyists and in high-tech enclaves such as California's Silicon Valley.

<snip>

In 1996 Lieberman, Breaux, and Simon Rosenberg founded the New Democrat Network political action committee. "Our role is to add political muscle," says Rosenberg. In the 1997–1998 reporting period, its first full cycle, NDN raised $1.4 million directly, and another $1.2 million in so-called "bundled" contributions, gathered at fundraisers for individual candidates and funneled through NDN. In the 1999–2000 period, NDN more than doubled its take, raising $4 million directly and bundling $1.45 million more, plus $450,000 for GoreLieberman. Nearly $2 million of NDN's take in the last cycle came in large, unregulated soft-money chunks from companies such as Aetna, AT&T, and Microsoft and from trade groups such as the Securities Industry Association, who helped sponsor a $1.2-million fundraiser honoring Lieberman on February 13.

NDN's brochures sound like investment prospectuses. "NDN acts as a political venture capital fund to create a new generation of elected officials," says the PAC. "NDN provides the political intelligence you need to make well-informed decisions on how to spend your political capital. Just like an investment advisor, NDN exhaustively vets candidates and endorses only those who meet our narrowly defined criteria."

Much, much more: http://www.prospect.org/print/V12/7/dreyfuss-r.html

By the way, in the same issue of The American Prospect was this article by Will Marshall:

Liberal Loss or Progressive Mandate?
http://www.prospect.org/print/V12/7/marshall-w.html

Don't take my word for this - read for yourself:

DLC website: http://www.ndol.org/

PPI website: http://www.ppionline.org/

CLI website: http://209.50.252.70/index.shtml

PNAC Iraq statements: http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqstatement-031903.htm

http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqstatement-032803.htm