In their own words. An "intellectual buyout" of the Democratic Party. [View all]

[madfloridian]

There's often a lot of denial about the purposes of the forerunner to the Third Way...the DLC.

They intended to change the party into one that could get enough money without having to rely on the party's traditional constituents.

Simon Rosenberg 2001:
SNIP..."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."

http://prospect.org/article/how-dlc-does-it

And here's another kicker. It's hard to deny these words of the earlier members like Rob Shapiro.

Seems the "intellectual leveraged buyout" of the Democratic party has worked quite well.

The post is originally by Lloyd Grove of the Washington Post.

Al From, the Life of the Party

Senator Herman Talmadge attributed Al From's Southern twang to his hanging around so many Dixie Centrists.

But some would suggest a different explanation for From's -- pronounced "frahm's" -- strange and mysterious mode of speech, which occasionally recalls former Georgia Sen. Herman Talmadge, jaw chock-full of tobacco juice. It's all those Dixie centrists he's been consorting with during his seven years at the helm of the Democratic Leadership Council.

Rob Shapiro, the DLC VP at the time, and a Clinton advisor, spoke clearly about their purpose.

What we've done in the Democratic Party," explains institute Vice President Rob Shapiro, a Clinton economic adviser, "is an intellectual leveraged buyout." The DLC, presumably, is acting as arbitrageur, selling off unprofitable mind-sets to produce a lean and efficient philosophy for the "New Democrat," as DLCers call their slick bimonthly magazine.

Unprofitable mind-sets sold off to be more efficient. We have learned through the years that a whole lot of Democratic ideals were considered "unprofitable mind-sets"...and they had to go.

I have been thinking of this comment from 1992 as we see a commission appointed by the president putting Social Security on the table and not backing down at all.

I have thought of it as I realize this group is getting their long-time goal of charter schools accomplished finally under this administration.

They are still lecturing the left, the liberals to stop complaining.