"A Dirty Word Gets Clean" Digby's got a good point.

[madfloridian]

21. Don't forget the Dem think tank DLC started attacks on liberals in the late 80s.

DLC goal was to make the Dem party business-friendly, to ignore "traditional interest groups."

The Democratic party leaders in the late 80s wanted to be "ideologically freed" from taking positions that made it hard to win. Basically that meant they could be more like the Republicans in policy and not worry about it...the money would be coming in anyway.

Seems to me they have succeeded. The party appears to be able to ignore their activist base and can concentrate on the corporations and rich folks who provide them sufficient money.

The New Democrats, the DLC were pushing these policies which were at the expense of the working, everyday people in the Democratic party. This is not conjecture, not guesswork...we have the very words of one of the founders.

How the DLC Does It

Simon Rosenberg, part of the DLC team, later formed the New Democrat Network.

Simon Rosenberg, the former field director for the DLC who directs the New Democrat Network, a spin-off political action committee, says, “We’re trying to raise money to help them lessen their reliance on traditional interest groups in the Democratic Party. In that way,” he adds, “they are ideologically freed, frankly, from taking positions that make it difficult for Democrats to win.”