...including the DLC's explanation as to why Gore 'lost' the 2000 election...
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Transcript
2004 Democratic National Convention
Al From
Democratic Leadership Council CEO
Monday, July 26, 2004; 2:30 PM
Al From, founder and CEO of the Democratic Leadership Council, was online Monday, July 26 at 2:30 p.m. to discuss the Democratic Convention, the Kerry-Edwards ticket and the 2004 election.
Al From: John Kerry and John Edwards are good, reform New Democrats. Don't believe those voting record analysies. The Democratic Party is very different today than it was when it lost three straight landslides in the 1980s. On the key issues that redefined the party -- fiscal discipline, welfare reform, crime, and trade -- John Kerry voted with Bill Clinton even though large numbers of liberals voted the other way. Zell Miller is not a New Democrat in the progressive center; he's a virtual card carrying Republican. For a complete analysis see our website www.ndol.org. We analyzed the National Journal voting record. Kerry only cast 19 or 63 votes counted -- the DLC agreed with him on almost all of them. So'd we'd be a liberal senator by their standards.
Al From: A centrist, New Democrat who can win both core Democrats and swing voters is the only Democrat who can win the White House. John Kerry is such a Democrat. He's running on a platform of national strength, expanding the middle class, and duty and responsibility. His platform is similar to 2000 but the tone of the campaign is aimed more at critical middle class voters.
Al From: I believe voters know why they're dissatisfied with George Bush. They don't need Democrats to stridently tell them over and over again. John Kerry just needs to introduce himself to the voters so they know who he is, what he believes, what he stands for and what he'll do as president. That's what he needs to tell them this week at the convention. That's why he's instructed speakers not to attack Bush personally.
From: John Kerry is a New Democrat. He's running on a new democrat platform of strength, opporunity, and service. He -- and John Edwards -- are strong advocates of expanding the middle class, not just their tax burdens. We did a New Dem Daily on the Kerry-Edwards ticket. You can find it on www.ndol.org. John Edwards was a terrific addition to the ticket. His message -- as you saw in the Wisconsin primary -- is powerful and compliments Kerry's. ---
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9666-2004Jul23.html----------
Dems Say Gore's Presidential Bid Ruined by Populist Message
By Brian Hansen
WASHINGTON, DC, January 24, 2001 (ENS) - Al Gore, the self-styled environmental candidate in the 2000 Presidential election, lost his bid for the White House because he campaigned on an outdated "populist" platform that was too liberal for most Americans, according to a new report drafted by the Democratic Leadership Council.
The report, titled "Why Gore Lost, And How Democrats Can Come Back," was unveiled this morning by Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) officials at a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington. The DLC's 40 page report concludes that the Democratic Party must move towards the political right - towards the Republicans - if it wants to regain control of Congress in 2002 and the White House in 2004.
Democrat Al Gore, who ran on an environmental platform, lost his bid for the White House because he cast himself as a liberal, concludes a new report released by the Democratic Leadership Council (Photo courtesy Office of Vice President Al Gore)
Al From, the DLC's founder and CEO, opened the freewheeling discussion forum this morning by arguing that Democrat Al Gore made a huge tactical mistake by continually emphasizing that he would "fight for the people and not the powerful" as the nation's first president of the 21st Century.
"Gore chose a populist rather than a new Democrat message, and as a result, voters viewed him as too liberal and identified him as an advocate of big government," From said. "By emphasizing class warfare,
seemed to be talking to industrial age rather than information age America." --- http://ens-newswire.com/ens/jan2001/2001-01-24-15.asp
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LC | Memo | May 15, 2003
The Real Soul of the Democratic Party
By Al From and Bruce Reed
DLC Memo
TO:
Leading Democrats
FROM:
Al From and Bruce Reed
SUBJECT:
The Real Soul of the Democratic Party
But the great myth of the current cycle is the misguided notion that the hopes and dreams of activists represent the heart and soul of the Democratic Party. Real Democrats are real people, not activist elites. The mission of the Democratic Party, as Bill Clinton pledged in 1992, is to provide "real answers to the real problems of real people." Real Democrats who champion the mainstream values, national pride, and economic aspirations of middle-class and working people are the real soul of the Democratic Party, not activists and interest groups with narrow agendas.
Under Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, and Clinton, the Democratic Party built the middle class, fought for social justice, defended America's freedom, and promoted democracy and free enterprise in the world. The broad prosperity generated under these Democratic presidents has defined the central difference between the two parties, which is that Democrats believe in opening the doors of opportunity for real people everywhere.
What activists like Dean call the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party is an aberration: the McGovern-Mondale wing, defined principally by weakness abroad and elitist, interest-group liberalism at home. That's the wing that lost 49 states in two elections, and transformed Democrats from a strong national party into a much weaker regional one. --- http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ci.cfm?
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This article can be found on the web at
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20021223&s=borosage
Into the Breach
by ROBERT L. BOROSAGE
The Democratic muddle continues in post-election hangover. The corporate wing of the party, the Democratic Leadership Council, once more urges the party to move even further to the right. Former president Clinton, who should know, bemoans the fact that Republicans have a "personal destruction" machine and Democrats don't. House Democrats chose a strong liberal, Nancy Pelosi, as their leader and immediately surrounded her with "the guys" who fear a liberal bent. At this point, it isn't clear the party can stand up and fight for anything.
In the postelection skirmishes, party conservatives are stuffing how this election was actually run and lost down a memory hole. In the event, Democratic leaders chose consciously not to put forth a program to get the economy going. They purposefully stood "shoulder to shoulder" with Bush in the war on terror and Iraq. Most endangered senators embraced Bush's tax cuts at home and wars abroad. Democrats were so committed to budget balancing that they were unable to agree on a serious prescription-drug program. With the DLC warning against being too anticorporate, they let Bush co-opt the corporate scandals. Conservative antichoice, progun candidates were recruited for supposedly conservative rural swing districts. Senators like Jean Carnahan went out of their way to brandish their hunting rifles. With honorable exceptions, what Donna Brazile called "drive by" campaigns predominated, with candidates driving by their base to focus on swing voters in the suburbs and exurbs.
The results were apparent. The most comprehensive election day polling available--that done by Greenberg/Quinlan for the Institute for America's Future and the Democracy Corps--showed that voters were most concerned about the economy, but got no clear idea from either party about what to do about it. Republicans used war and the President to rally their base. Democrats did better among independents than in 2000, but didn't match the Republican turnout.
Yet the DLC once more wants to blame the debacle on liberals. In a "confidential" memo titled "The Road Ahead," the DLC's Al From and Bruce Reed argue that the party suffers from being "too liberal," too associated with tax-and-spend politics, "not tough enough" on terror, too identified with gun control and prochoice politics, and too beholden to its base. Their remedy? Democrats should be tougher than Bush on terror and Iraq. They should stop "promising the moon" on programs like prescription drugs. They should be the keepers of fiscal discipline, suggesting no program without showing how they would pay for it. They should "respect the values of mainstream America" by retreating on gun control, choice and states' rights. Above all, they should stop catering to their base and reach out to independent swing voters--presumably the white "office park dads" whom the DLC has offered up as the key target for the party--the most Republican cohort of the electorate. --- http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20021223&s=borosage
DLC | The New Democrat | January 1, 1998
The Myth of the Resurgent Left
By The Editors
In a similar vein, New Democrats share Clinton's belief that Medicare and Social Security must be reformed to preserve the nation's commitment to health and retirement security. The left interprets such realism as a fatal concession to the Republicans that threatens to remove "protecting Medicare and Social Security" as perennial political trump cards. Yet the public, especially younger voters, overwhelmingly recognizes the need for structural reforms.
Finally, liberal elites charge New Democrats with blurring the sharp contrasts between Democrats and Republicans. Partisan posturing may well be the occupational hazard of legislators. But presidents are elected to solve the nation's problems, not to posture. Given the reality of divided government, the nation's progress depends on some modicum of political cooperation between the White House and congressional Republicans. Liberal elites need to understand that the party's hopes of recapturing Congress hinge on its ability to govern effectively, not on its ability to mire government in ideological gridlock.
President Clinton and the New Democrats have infused the Democratic Party with new ideas, fresh energy, and a realistic political strategy. Liberal fundamentalists feel control of the party slipping away, and they want to get it back. But for Democrats, there can be no turning back. The best way for President Clinton and Vice President Gore to consolidate their political gains and show they are not intimidated by the labor-left revolt is to continue their historic effort to update the Democratic agenda for the Information Age. --- http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ci.cfm?contentid=1621&kaid=127&subid=171
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Black Dems must clean up own house! - The Black Commentator
Date 2004/12/2 17:14:00 | Topic: Guest Articles
What must be broken is the Democratic Leadership Council’s corporate grip on the party. Two presidential elections in succession, DLC-led tickets have acquiesced to Republican criminality, leaving Black voting rights strewn in the gutter like plastic baubles the morning after a New Orleans Mardi Gras parade. Kerry’s near-instantaneous concession was designed to pre-empt and silence the cries of the wounded so that the DLC might make amends with the Bush Pirates and rejoin the permanent government as a compliant, junior partner. However, history may record that Kerry’s cavalier dismissal of the Democratic base’s deep pain and righteous outrage was the fatal insult. Contempt is no basis for cohabitation. If the DLC’s dead hand cannot be pried from the controls, the national Democratic Party is finished. The troops will disappear, and no amount of 527-type money will buy them back. --- http://www.dividedbypolitics.com/modules/news/print.php?storyid=36
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