From 1992's Washington Post..linked from the DLC website.
Al From Life of the Party"What we've done in the Democratic Party," explains institute Vice President Rob Shapiro, a Clinton economic adviser, "is an intellectual leveraged buyout." The DLC, presumably, is acting as arbitrageur, selling off unprofitable mind-sets to produce a lean and efficient philosophy for the "New Democrat," as DLCers call their slick bimonthly magazine."
Definition of "leveraged buyout":
http://www.answers.com/topic/leveraged-buyout"leveraged buyout,
the takeover of a company, financed by borrowed funds. Often, the target company's assets are used as security for the loans acquired to finance the purchase. The acquiring company or group then repays the loans from the target company's profits or by selling its assets. Many leveraged buyouts have been financed through junk bonds"
This article from 1992 by Lloyd Grove of the Washington Post is a little snide in tone, but it does have some good quotes from the mouths of the DLC leaders. Just a few snips below.
About Al From's Southern accent:
"Ah picked up mah twang in 1960," he says, tracing it to a summer at Northwestern University, where he roomed with Kentuckian David Hawpe, now editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal. "Ah'm married to a woman from Birmingham, Alabama," he adds, referring to his wife, Ginger, "but she doesn't have a Southern accent."
But some would suggest a different explanation for From's -- pronounced "frahm's" -- strange and mysterious mode of speech, which occasionally recalls former Georgia Sen. Herman Talmadge, jaw chock-full of tobacco juice. It's all those Dixie centrists he's been consorting with during his seven years at the helm of the Democratic Leadership Council."
"As he contemplated the distance he and his tribe have come - from a renegade band of moderates athwart the Democratic Party's liberal orthodoxy to the triumphant ringleaders of a not-so-silent coup - he became increasingly mush-mouthed, and positively gooey-eyed. "Wonderful, wonderful," From kept murmuring over the cheers, as he looked out onto a convention floor teeming with signs for two of his charter members, Bill Clinton and Al Gore. "To see it all blossom into this incredible scene is somethin' else."
"I think that some people looked at us initially and felt threatened," says Sen. John Breaux of Louisiana, the DLC's chairman since Clinton's departure (Sens. Sam Nunn of Georgia and Charles Robb of Virginia have also held the post). Breaux points out that rather than ersatz Republicanism, the group favors cuts in the defense budget, a progressive tax system, abortion rights, strict adherence to civil rights laws and other Democratic verities.
"We always perceived ourselves not as a threat," Breaux says, "but as an active participant in advocating change - not against traditional Democratic values, and not as a group of Southern white boys."
"This hasn't been an effort to take over the party," From demurs about the DLC, whose staff of 20, including five who work for its think tank, the Progressive Policy Institute, occupies one floor of a bank on Capitol Hill. "We don't care about the party apparatus. What we care about is what this party says, and what its candidates stand for."
The group's $2.5 million annual budget comes largely from corporate lobbyists and the financial community, who appreciate the DLC's pragmatic approach of "Democratic capitalism"
I think the original goals of this group caused them not to need the "party apparatus", which is essentially the people of the party. They only wanted to control the message. Trouble is there are just too many voices in the party for their group to do that. They are still not talking about the rest of the party, meaning
most of us, like we really count or matter. They just don't want us criticizing.
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