is the third way DLC forming a new third party?

[welshTerrier2]

first, we saw Lieberman ooze out of the party in a callous effort to appeal to "the center" ... of course, he's also doing all he can to appeal to republicans as well ... Lieberman's sellout epitomizes the ultimate absurity of third way political tactics ... the third way has always been to sellout the ideals of the Democratic Party, assuming that we won't notice, to slither further and further into republican territory ... ideology and values mean nothing to the triangulators; "winning" means everything ... and so it has become with Lieberman ... for him, winning with republican support is every bit as good as winning with support from Democrats ...it is the quintessential view of the "third way", though of course they deny it and accuse the left of the very same thing, that there is no difference between the parties ... "a win is a win is a win" ...

and now we are given a distasteful whiff of Al From's latest collusion with the enemy ... a recent CBS news article, discussed in another currently active DU thread, reported that From has been actively soliciting REPUBLICAN Mayor Bloomberg to run for President in 2008 as an Independent ... a supposedly leading voice in the Democratic Party is cozying up to a republican to get him to run for President as an independent ... imagine that ... what Mr. From is actually doing is trying to entice someone to RUN AGAINST THE NOMINEE OF HIS OWN PARTY ... words like treason and traitor leap to mind, don't they?

for some time now, i have sought a dialog with the DLC ... as harmful as i believe they are to our party, i also have recognized that we cannot function as a divided party ... as much as i held genuine disdain for their message, i thought we needed to pull together to defeat the neocons and retake control of the government ... given the actions we've seen from Mssrs. Lieberman and From, i've seen enough ... no unity is possible with the party's right wing ...

and it may not even be a choice that is open to us ... From's solicitation of Bloomberg to run as an Independent and Lieberman's Independent candidacy perhaps are signals that a new Third Party is being formed ... perhaps they will try to lure the "gang of 14" from the Senate to join them ... they will campaign on "non-partisanship" ... they will point fingers at both republicans and Democrats alike and argue that they are only looking out for themselves and not for the best interests of the country ... well, there sure is hell is nothing holy about trying to wedge yourself between the republicans and the Democrats ... this position is often occupied by those who are nothing but cynical about those pushing for real change at the margins ... often, being in the center (albeit right of center in this case), is being neither here nor there ...

people who call themselves centrists love to argue that somehow a "moderate" position is the most pragmatic ... it's total crap ... the most pragmatic position is one with real solutions to real problems ... just because you are less partisan and you are willing to "balance" the views from left and right gives you no special claim on pragmatism ... there's nothing pragmatic about wishy-washy compromise; too often, the diluted compromised position does nothing but maintain the status quo ... given the many crises we face, what the hell is so pragmatic about that???

so, and of course this is all just speculation, a heads up ... don't be caught off guard if you start hearing about a new Third Party ... this one won't be the Greens on the left; it will be one formed by the Lieber-Froms right down the mushy middle ... or perhaps not so much the middle as a status quo, right of center, corporate-driven view of the world ...

[Jed Dilligan]

1. Good

then they can have their own "Underground" and fuck off from here.

[kenny blankenship]

2. they should call it Zentrum, just to make it clear what they stand for

[ShortnFiery]

3. Wow, maybe the DLC will join The Third Way Party?

For the life of me I find their positions to be what we considered of "moderate republicans" in the 1970s. :shrug:

No, there's no need for The Democratic Party to go fully "Green" but I would feel more a part of Our Party if it would STRONGLY entertain tackling Average American Worker issues such as "A living Wage", curtailing Corporate Welfare Programs, and halting Tax Cuts to the Rich. :-)

[Warpy]

4. Stop calling From and the DLC "centrist!"

They are CONSERVATIVES, Eisenhower Repugs who fled during Nixon's reign and who attained powerful positions within the party by promising to counter the GOP "southern strategy."

There is nothing centrist about them.

87% of the people in this country in a poll last summer said the minimum wage needs to be raised a hefty amount and immediately. Mr From and the DLC disagree, preferring timid, incremental rises over a period of years.

A majority of people in this country think we need to get out of Iraq, whether immediately or on a timetable. Mr. From and his fellow conservatives disagree.

A majority of the people in this country want national health care insurance, and most have realized the insurance industry won't deliver. Mr. From and his fellow conservatives want a patchwork plan that leaves insurance companies in place and able to deny care to maximize profit.

A majority of the people in this country are viewing the constant loss of jobs and entire industries to overseas countries as a serious threat. Mr. From and his fellow conservatives think it's good business.

Mr. From, the DLC and the Wall Street Democrats all need a remedial lesson on how to find the political center. I have just outlined where much of it lies. If they don't figure it out soon, they will destroy the party anyway. We might as well encourage them to leave.

[welshTerrier2]

5. OK ...

i've tweaked the OP to include some of the points you've raised ...

i did not intend to label the DLC movement as centrist in the sense of where they relate to the majority of the American people on a political spectrum but rather their relative location between Democrats and neocons ... but i agree, their political ideology is well right of center in that it endorses corporatism and militarism ...

[Totally Committed]

7. Excellent post... I could not agree more.

Very, very astute observations, too!

TC

[Zhade]

8. Quite correct. Thank you for pointing that out.

Never forget, the DLC and its supporters are conservatives, not liberals. Often, they're the ones to wax nostalgic about types like the Dixiecrats.

They are nothing but conservatives.

[Recursion]

6. Well, about From and Bloomberg...

... hypothetically, do you think Bloomberg would siphon off more Republican or Democratic votes? My guess is he'd be another Perot and suck away a lot of the thinking GOP (which at last count is about 5% of them, which is enough).

[Ignacio Upton]

15. Honestly, Bloomberg would take more votes away from US!

Especially if Hillary ends up running.

[Recursion]

17. Not to be self-flagellating, but whose fault is that?

We *should* be rejoicing at the idea of a center-right candidate running (remember, Perot was the GOP's Nader in '92). Why aren't we saying something that appeals more to center and center-left voters? The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars but in ourselves.

[Stinky The Clown]

9. I agree with what you said ... but ......

.... I also fear they may, indeed, have a pretty strong hand.

I am NOT endorsing them in any way shape or form. But I want to look at all sides of this. I think this 'movement' can well prove to be a powerful threat to us .... and to the Republicans, too, for that matter.

Look at some facts:

A --- The public is kinda pissed over the extreme partisanship of the last few decades. It doesn't matter that they're to blame for it! They don't like it.

B --- The Democrats have long been vilified as 'liberals'. I know we should stand up to that meme - and mostly we do - but that doesn't change the underlying fact. 'Nobody likes a liberal' is a pretty widespread sentiment thanks to years of successfully pushing this theme by the likes of Gingrich and now the entire media and the phalanxes of RW shriek monkeys.

C --- The flip side is, no one's very much in love with the right wing extremists and religious zealots. They're becoming as unpopular as 'liberals'. Draw no inference of moral equivalence from that statement; none was intended. Suffice to say that the 'partisans' on both sides are equally disliked.

D --- Logic doesn't enter into the voting calculus of most Americans. More thought is put into the next American Idol or celebrity Dancing Stars than into the next President. That's not good, but it is certainly the fact.

On that 'fertile ground' a third way movement, cut not from the fringes and the margins but from the very center, can, indeed, get traction. I'm not here to vilify Bill Clinton, but his third way presidency was the very picture of moderation. With planks stolen from the traditional platforms of both sides, and with former partisans now joining hands and singing a sham version of Kumbaya, it will be hard for the 'squishy middle' to avoid getting seduced by a unity party.

This is dangerous stuff.

[welshTerrier2]

10. no "buts" are needed ...

i think it's a very dangerous situation also ... it's not at all clear whether more votes would be pulled from the left or the right ... plus, it would also force republicans and Democrats to seek coalitions with them on legislation ...

if they could start with a mininum of the "gang of 14", which certainly remains to be seen, they would be politically viable right from the start ...

as always, i see this as much less of a "spectrum" issue ... the way we win on the left is by being clear and having real solutions to real problems ... opposing global warming and opposing wars that weaken the country and opposing the giveaway of American jobs are not left, right or center ... they are policies that we desperately need ... alternative energy and mass transit, choosing only necessary wars based on credible evidence and not lies and propaganda, and using a coalition of government, labor and industry to create jobs is the positive agenda for change that we need to put before the nation ...

the American people may initially be seduced by "non-partisanship" but, in the end, you still have to deliver ... and all the center-right coalition will ever deliver is more corporatism ... when mega-corps gain, the people lose ... the DLC, and the republicans, are all about putting profits before people ... with good advertising and clever campaign tactics, you can sell that for a while ... but that game is getting very, very old ... left unrestrained by having to cater to the misguided right-wing of the Democratic Party, we will finally be free to be heard ... that's no small thing ... and message one, as the old cliche goes, is "people before profits" ... you're not able to hear that message today eminating from the mushy, compromised Democratic Party ...

if the party's right-wing wants out, i'll be standing there happily waving goodbye to them ... then, free to give a real message, Democrats would become the change agents America needs us to be ...

[sandyd921]

18. In complete agreement!

It's not left-right labels and defintely not mushy corporatism made over into so-called centrism or moderation, but real solutions to real problems that will win elections for Democrats now and in the future.

[paulk]

11. several points I'd like to make

There is nothing in any of the articles you quote that says that From is "soliciting" Bloomberg to run for President. The idea of a Bloomberg run was first put forward by Bloomberg's top aide, Kevin Sheekey, shortly after Bloomberg won re-election as Mayor last November. So this isn't a new idea, it's been out there for 10 months at least.

For all we know, Bloomberg may have been soliciting From, or asking for advice, or discussing the odds on the Redskins going to the Super Bowl this season.... it was a private meeting and any guesses on who said what are pure conjecture.


Second thing - you keep equating Al From with the DLC... while it's true that another DLC member was present at the above meeting, and Al From is the CEO, it's not logical to conclude that Mr. From was at this meeting as a representative for the organization, rather than as a representative for himself. It's also not a logical assumption to go from this meeting to the idea that the DLC, as an organization, is forming a third party.





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[welshTerrier2]

12. "it's also not a logical assumption"

you have presumed far more than was stated in my post ... if you reread it, you'll see that i specifically said:

"so, and of course this is all just speculation, a heads up ... don't be caught off guard if you start hearing about a new Third Party ..."

you should also note that my subject line was a question, not an "assumption" ...

your point that "this is nothing new" is also inappropriately contradictory to anything i wrote ... whether new or old, my "speculations" resulted from a current news story which is why i made the post now ... the fact that some information may be 10 months old has no bearing on what might occur with the DLC in the future ...

and you also objected to my use of the term "solicited" ... the article i read on the "secret meeting" made it sound like Bloomberg, who has expressed a degree of skepticism about running, was indeed invited to dinner by several people, including From, to discuss a possible Inependent presidential bid ... when you invite someone to dinner and try to convince them to run for office, i consider that a form of solicitation ...

your objections seem to be based on "not having all the facts and not knowing exactly what was said" ... if a transcript is produced or someone taped the meeting, i'd be happy to post it here ... in the meantime, i'll rely on the tone and implications of the press coverage ... nothing here is citing exact, perfect knowledge of every word that was said; as i stated above, this post is speculation ...

let me ask you this as a bottom line: do you think a third party like the one i described is even a remote possibility and do you have a problem with posts that contemplate what the impact of such a party might be? i call it analysis and discussion and think it's perfectly appropriate ...

[paulk]

14. your original post was a question

but, it's pretty clear from the body of your post what your answer to that question is.

I made the "this is nothing new" point because you didn't, and anyone not familiar with this situation might conclude from your post that Bloomberg running for President was the idea of From or the DLC.

In the United States "solicitation" is a crime.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solicitation

None of the people at that meeting were engaged in any sort of criminal activity.


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I think if Lieberman wins in CT, and thereby shows that a centrist candidate running as an independent can win, we might very likely see Bloomberg run for President. One candidate doesn't equate to forming a third Party, however, so I'm not sure if that's a credible proposition at this point. If Bloomberg wins, then we might very well see a new, centrist party emerge. There are an awful lot of people in this country sick of both the Democratic and Republican Parties...

[CarlVK]

13. As far as I'm concerned, Lieberman, From, the DLC and

the other proto-GOP quisling whores can go form their own country. As long as it's FAR away from mine.

Think of it this way....if they do, it will be like your house right after a really good pest control expert has swept through and removed every rat, termite and cockroach.

[KoKo]

16. Ah....HELL! ....it's not just the DLC...it's Repugs, too! We will have to

go through this "Sports Meme" Metaphor for the next two years ...just because Bush should be prosecuted for WAR CRIMES along with the REST OF HIS FASCIST ADMINISTRATION!

AND...because DLC DEMS JUST DON'T GET WHERE THEY WENT WRONG...so they will Search for THIRD WAY with their REPUG FRIENDS. :puke:

Sickening!!!!!

[CK_John]

19. New Independents will make major waves

in 08. I think we will have to deal with the Mayor of NYC and the Gates Family. I am not sure if Bill Gates or his wife will be the public face of this new movement. But count on a very strong and well financed independent who will make Ross Perot, Nader, or Anderson seem like small potatoes.