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Thursday, November 04, 2004

Where We Go From Here, part I: The Death of the DLC, the Purge of the DNC
Posted by Jill | 11:20 AM
It was SO tempting to link up to articles from around the world that show alarm at what the American people did to the world on Tuesday, and articles that demonstrate that the vote in Florida and Ohio just doesn't make sense, and which call the voting apparatus into question, but I'm going to leave that to others. I am 49 years old and life is just too damn short to look backwards. Our party is a party in serious trouble, and we who represent the opposition to this administration have a responsibility to work to effect CONSTRUCTIVE CHANGE. But in order to do that, we need to brainstorm about who we are and what we stand for.

I'm not alone in doing this; there are good ideas coming out of all of the groups like Truth and Hope, Moveon.org, and scores of individual bloggers. I think they're all worth reading, but at some point we're all going to have to get together under SOME kind of umbrella and create an agenda that people can get behind; one that demonstrates how progressivism works for all Americans who play by the rules, Yesterday I touched on some early thoughts; today and in the next days -- as long as it takes -- I'm going to jot down some thoughts on other issues in the hope of getting some dialogue going, both with people who comment here and with other bloggers and activists, in the hope that they help the effort along.

Many people feel today that the Democratic Party is beyond repair, that our only hope is to create a new, third party. We've seen over the last 20 years that under our current system, third parties are marginalized. The main problem is that third parties tend to want to start from the top, i.e. the presidency, and work down. This is not how you build a party; you have to start at the grassroots and work up. We don't have the luxury of time for that. We need to take back the Democratic Party from the money whores and the hacks and return it to the people.

This is what the groundswell that built behind Howard Dean's candidacy was all about, and although John Kerry lost the election, there's no denying the effect that this grassroots had. From the Moveon.org bake sales to online fundraising via the "bats" that Dean's new organization, Democracy for America is still using, to letter-writing parties, individuals were involved in the process this year more than any other time I can remember since 1972.

While Dr. Dean certainly made mistakes, as did his organization, let's not forget who destroyed the Dean candidacy in Iowa: It was John Kerry's and Dick Gephardt's organizations, with the help of the DNC and DLC.

The DLC came about as a result of the ridiculous notion that the Democratic Party coudl only win if it dressed up in Republican drag. When Bill Clinton won in 1992, the DLC claimed credit, saying that the moderate Democratic platform it created was the winning formula. Al Gore ran under the DLC banner in 2000, and John Kerry ran as a pro-war moderate in 2004, and both efforts lost. The fact of the matter is that Bill Clinton won because he was Bill Clinton -- the kind of charismatic leader that is born, not made. Even after the scandals, Bill Clinton is greeted like a rock star wherever he goes, and not just by the faithful.

Terry McAuliffe didn't make Bill Clinton, and neither did Bob Shrum, or any of the other hacks who have spent the last 20 years fellating corporate bigshots in the hope that the captains of industry will throw just a couple of pennies their way after showering the Republicans with millions of dollars in bribes. If you lie down with dogs, you'll wake up with fleas, and that's what the Democratic sellout to corporate interests has wrought.

Tom Daschle was beaten on Tuesday, and it couldn't have happened to a better sellout. I have no doubt that Daschle is a decent man, but he sold us out for four years, and I'm glad he's gone.

It's time for them all to go. It's time to take our party back and make it stand for average Americans. It's time to remind people why progressivism works. It's time to stop tiptoeing around Karl Rove and take him on directly. It's time to stop turning the other cheek. It's time to stand for something we can be proud of, something we can recruit regular Americans to support, to get people back into the process. The Dean primary campaign and John Kerry's general election campaign proved that individuals will open their wallets when they believe. The party hacks have given us nothing to believe in. They must go.

There's been a call at Kos for Howard Dean to be the new DNC chairman. It's an intriguing idea, but only if the chairmanship of the DNC ceases being about sucking up to corporations and starts being about hammering out a party manifesto and getting the people back into the process. Howard Dean emerged yesterday as a major player in the future of the party, and whether it's in this capacity or some other one, he is a force that should be reckoned with.

Someone told me yesterday that Bush supporters at her workplace were saying how relieved they had been that Dean had not been the nominee, for he would have mopped the floor with George W. Bush. Dean STOOD FOR SOMETHING, and it's time the Democratic Party did too.

The old-line party hacks have had their chance, and they have blown it every step of the way. Since Lee Atwater turned Willie Horton into a household name in 1988, Democrats have underestimated the power of the Republican attack machine. John Kerry thought voting for the Iraq war would, in combination with his own military service, inoculate him against Republican attacks. What is it going to take for these people to learn? If they can't learn, let them get out of the way.

Next up: Abortion.

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