My patience is just lost with some people. Can we all agree that there is a difference between a New Democrat and a Progressive Democrat? We don’t have to nail down a precise definition of each to agree that there are differences, right? I know the DLC confused matters by creating the Progressive Policy Institute but, please, educate yourselves. Please. Here’s the DLC’s Hyde Park Declaration, created in 2000. Read it. Here’s some highlights:
We believe in shifting the focus of America’s anti-poverty and social insurance programs from transferring wealth to creating wealth.
What do you think that means?
We believe government should harness the forces of choice and competition to achieve public goals.
You do understand what this means, right?
We believe in enhancing the role that civic entrepreneurs, voluntary groups, and religious institutions play in tackling America’s social ills.
Is this beginning so sound like Bushism yet?
How’s this?
We believe in progressive internationalism — the bold exercise of U.S. leadership to foster peace, prosperity, and democracy.
Let’s review.
1) Focus on wealth creation over wealth distribution (i.e., cut taxes on dividends, capital gains, and corporations, so that there is more investment).
2) Rather than force people into Social Security or public schools, create private accounts and private-school alternatives.
3) Create faith-based programs to deal with social problems.
4) Make bold use of the American military to bring Democracy to the world.
None of this is progressive. All of it has been attempted by the Bush administration. And this organization, the DLC, was basically co-founded by Bill Clinton, who served as its first chairman. Today’s DLC’s “current chairman is former Representative Harold Ford, Jr. of Tennessee, and its vice chair is Senator Thomas R. Carper of Delaware. Its CEO is [founder] Al From and its president is Bruce Reed.”
Let’s look at who these individuals support in the primaries. First, there is president Bruce Reed.
Hillary Rodham Clinton has broad visions of foreign and domestic policy, backed by proposals that are at times too incremental or conservative for some Democrats’ taste. Bruce Reed, a Clinton adviser who is president of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, says Clinton does not fit a stereotype.
“She is both pragmatic and progressive, and she wants hard-headed solutions to problems,” he says.
Here’s DLC CEO Al From in November:
The Clinton-New Democrat formula is the only formula with a track record of winning both the nomination and the general election. The track record in recent elections shows that the populist formula doesn’t really deliver the very voters it’s aimed at – white male, working-class voters – probably because they are the most skeptical of government delivering on its promises.
Meanwhile, while Carper endorsed his fellow senator, Joe Biden, there’s no question that his sympathies now lie with Clinton, just as they lay with Joe Lieberman over Ned Lamont. And Harold Ford, Jr. is just biding his time until President-elect Hillary Clinton appoints him as Howard Dean’s replacement at the DNC.
[For more on Hillary’s DLC connections, see Fmr. Rep. Major Owens recent piece at Huffington Post]
None of this stuff seems to matter to people like Kevin Drum, who can still complain about Obama’s lack of progressive framing while expressing a preference for Hillary Clinton.
OFF THE BUS….I haven’t been impressed with very much of the chatter about Barack Obama’s primary victory last night. Hillary didn’t give a concession speech? Give me a break. Who cares? Turnout was up? Yes, but it’s been an exciting and money-filled campaign and turnout has been up everywhere. Obama won the black vote and lost the white vote? Nothing new there. Obama won young people and Hillary won among the elderly? Again, no surprise.
What’s more, none of my views about this race have really changed. I think Hillary is still likely to win the nomination. Contrary to conventional wisdom, I suspect she’s also more electable than Obama. And Obama’s continued unwillingness to defend progressive policies on explicitly progressive grounds still bothers me.
More electable than Obama? I guess he attributes the record turnout in all the primaries to be a function of Hillary’s star power. And the youth turnout, too? But what really galls me is that he is bothered by Obama’s ‘unwillingness to defend progressive policies on explicitly progressive grounds’ as if Team Clinton isn’t violating every precept of progressive politics by calling Obama a Muslim, crack-dealing, Jesse Jackson loving ghetto negro. As if their voter suppression efforts in Nevada and their robocalls in South Carolina were just par for the course. How about those planted questions at town hall meetings? But I don’t need to get into a laundry list. Just like his soul brother Josh Marshall, Kevin is getting religion…and for the same reason.
UPDATE: My commenters seem to think this is a grumpy post. Sorry. That wasn’t my intent. For the most part I’m pissed, not grumpy, and I’ve changed the text of the post slightly to clean it up.
Really, I just wanted to make two points. First, I looked through all the exit polls last night and concluded that South Carolina just didn’t have a lot new to tell us. The things people are talking about — turnout, youth vote, black vs. white vote, etc. — are all things we’ve seen in the other primaries too.
Second, despite the fact that I still have some positive things to say about Hillary and some negative things to say about Obama, the dog whistle stuff is revolting and it’s pushed me over the edge. I’ve been slightly pro-Hillary in the past, but now I think I’m slightly pro-Obama.
It’s ugly watching these guys figure it out. You don’t judge candidates by their policy plans, you judge them by their backgrounds, their ethics, and the company they keep. We don’t elect a candidate, we elect a campaign…a gang. Do you want to elect Team Clinton? You think they’re progressive? What the fuck have you been smoking?
