Greider: The trouble started when the party abandoned its working-class base.

[wyldwolf]

18. I'm not sure why 'progressive' writers still push the 'Clinton financialization' myth

I mean, surely they know better... right? They wouldn't have an agenda being served by that (I'll put it nicely) exaggeration, would they?

According to the 1987 book Right Turn, DNC chairman Charles Manatt (1981 - 1984) cut a deal with big business and the labor movement to change the financing of the Democratic Party. And according to the book Honest Graft from 1988, former congressman Tony Coelho created the current business-friendly approach to fundraising and candidate recruitment for the DNC.

I'll remind you that during this time Bill Clinton was a governor and the nefarious DLC (cue Darth Vader music) was not in existence.

Let me quote Ralph Nader:

"This was about the same the time that Tony Coelho taught the Democrats, starting in 1979 when he was head of the House Campaign Finance Committee, to start raising big-time money from corporate interests. And they did."

Now, you can call Manatt and Coelho 'conservatives' for their embrace of corporate money but by most accounts they were liberals.