Crossposted at My Left Wing
A clarification of terms is timely. According to one blogger, it is “intellectually dishonest” to equate the DLC and the NDC. That blogger could not be more wrong. For how does that blogger explain the DLC’s reference to the NDC as their “leaders” on their website? If the NDC was not the Congressional offshoot of this national, political organization, I doubt they would enjoy such prominence at the DLC.
And how does that blogger, who is so bent on being “progressive,” reconcile the similarity between the interpretation of the 2006 elections espoused by the DLC and the NDC? According to both organizations, the “vital center” with what Ellen Tauscher calls its “vital members” won the 2006 election. Centrists, in a strange use of an anatomical metaphor, are obsessed with centers and vitality, as if centrists monopolized and occupied the chambers of the heart.
So this new NDC, an offshoot of the DLC, touts its new members, and some bloggers incorrectly refer to these new members as “progressive.” Anything compared to a Republican is “progressive,” just as anything above bedrock is considered soil. But to refer to a centrist as “progressive” gives one just as much information as referring to anything above bedrock as soil: we know soil is above bedrock, but the type and composition of the soil is not explicated. In other words, one basically says nothing, and in fact, not everything above bedrock is soil. In fact, there are a lot of rocks above soil. And excavating through bedrock is just as difficult as chipping through many rocks, although those smaller rocks may break in half on occassion. They may be different in size, but they are essentially the same, even if they may yield under pressure. Rocks are not soil, just as centrists are not progressives, although they may lodge themselves amongst the archaeological strata of their ranks.
So who are these pieces of DLC bedrock who insert themselves as so many NDC rocks in the Democratic caucus? Who are these people who are trying to hijack the word progressive for their debased, centrist and antiprogressive aims? It should be no surprise that everyone on this list is in one place or another affiliated with the DLC. Let us review.
Ellen Tauscher (CA), Chair
Ron Kind (WI), Co-Chair
Artur Davis (AL), Co-Chair
Adam Smith (WA), PAC Chair
Joseph Crowley (NY), WhipBrian Baird (WA)
John Barrow (GA)
Melissa Bean (IL)
Shelley Berkeley (NV)
Lois Capps (CA)
Russ Carnahan (MO)
Ed Case (HI)
Ben Chandler (KY)
Henry Cuellar (TX)
Jim Davis (FL)
Susan Davis (CA)
Rahm Emanuel (IL)
Eliot Engel (NY)
Bob Etheridge (NC)
Harold Ford (TN)
Charles Gonzalez (TX)
Jane Harman (CA)
Stephanie Herseth (SD)
Brian Higgins (NY)
Rush Holt (NJ)
Darlene Hooley (OR)
Jay Inslee (WA)
Steve Israel (NY)
Rick Larsen (WA)
John Larson (CT)
Carolyn McCarthy (NY)
Mike McIntyre (NC)
Kendrick Meek (FL)
Gregory Meeks (NY)
Charlie Melancon (LA)
Juanita Millender-McDonald (CA)
Dennis Moore (KS)
Jim Moran (VA)
David Price (NC)
Loretta Sanchez (CA)
Adam Schiff (CA)
Allyson Schwartz (PA)
David Scott (GA)
Vic Snyder (AR)
Tom Udall (NM)
Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL)
David Wu (OR)
And here are their new members, ushered into the caucus during the 2006 elections, a victorious moment the DLC and the NDC want to claim for the “vital center”:
- Gabby Giffords (AZ-8)
- Michael Arcuri (NY-24)
- Ed Perlmutter (CO-07)
- Joe Courtney (CT-02)
- Ron Klein (FL-22)
- Tim Mahoney (FL-16)
- Joe Sestak (PA-07)
- Heath Shuler (NC-11)
- Bruce Braley (IA-01)
- Chris Carney (PA-10)
- Nick Lampson (TX-22)
- Jason Altmire (PA-04)
- Kirstin Gillibrand (NY-20)
- Baron Hill (IN-09)
- Chris Murphy (CT-5)
- Patrick Murphy (PA-8)
A member of an organization that is an offshoot of the DLC, anyone listed above is not progressive; they are antiprogressive, centrist, advocates, according to the shifting headline of the NDC’s website, for “corporate citizenship.” Now let us use appellations probably now that the facts have been presented.
