The Problem With The Democratic Party: They Forget To Dance With The One That Brought Them


DemocraticWay.org



An excellent editorial from a new progressive public advocacy group



. . .
Republicans, and their many propagandists in the corporate media,
promote the notion that winning over southern conservatives is
imperative to the Democratic Party because it puts pressure on
Democrats to move the policy debate in this country further and further
to the right. Others repeat it because it legitimizes allowing the
Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) to maintain a leading role in
shaping Democratic strategy.



The
impact of this ill-advised ideological tinkering has been an
appreciable decline in Democratic support within traditionally loyal
constituency groups. Activists on the far left are increasingly
flirting with the Green Party. Union voters are increasingly receptive
to the GOP’s faux populism campaign. And more and more minorities are
voicing frustration at a party that they say is taking them for granted.



At the
epicenter of this campaign to convince Democrats that a major political
party can do without a core constituency remains the DLC. According
their rhetoric, constituency groups are merely special interests that
do more harm than good.



“We
don't need another president whose idea of a new tone in Washington is
to put his party's special interests first,” writes DLC leader Al From
in a recent column. For those unfamiliar with DLC-speak, the “special
interests” From is referring to are not the corporate interests that
fund his DLC operation but the traditional progressive constituencies
that collectively help to make up the base of the Democratic Party
From’s comment is a thinly veiled warning to the Democratic
presidential nominee not to cooperate with organized labor’s effort to
fix problems with NAFTA or to assist consumer groups who want to undo
the damage from the recent orgy of corporate deregulation.



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