The corporate Democrats who greased Bill Clinton's path to the
White House are now a bit worried. Their influence on the party's
presidential nomination process has slipped. But the Democratic
Leadership Council can count on plenty of assistance from mainstream
news media.
For several years leading up to 1992, the DLC curried favor with
high-profile political journalists as they repeated the mantra that the
Democratic Party needed to be centrist. Co-founded by Clinton in the
mid-1980s, the DLC emphasized catering to "middle class" Americans --
while the organization filled its coffers with funding from such
non-middle-class bastions as the top echelons of corporate outfits like
Arco, Prudential-Bache, Dow Chemical, Georgia Pacific and Martin
Marietta.
In a 1992 book, "Who Will Tell the People," political analyst
William Greider noted that the Democratic Leadership Council's main
objective was "an attack on the Democratic Party's core
constituencies -- labor, schoolteachers, women's rights groups, peace
and disarmament activists, the racial minorities and supporters of
affirmative action." During the eight years that followed, President
Clinton "moderately" shafted many of those constituencies.
Clinton proved to be a political survivor. But his presidency led
to the destruction of Democratic majorities in both the House and
Senate.
Now, the Los Angeles Times reported in late June, "the centrist
'New Democrat' movement is struggling to maintain its influence in the
party as the 2004 presidential race accelerates." DLC stalwart Sen. Joe
Lieberman is getting nowhere. Other DLC-friendly candidates, such as
Sens. John Kerry and John Edwards, are hardly catching fire.
A recent memo by a pair of DLC honchos, Al From and Bruce Reed,
linked the party's progressive-leaning activists with "elitist,
interest-group liberalism." The salvo is laughable. It would be
difficult to find any organization of Democrats more deserving of the
"elitist, interest-group" tag than the DLC, which has long been funded
by oil, chemical, insurance and military-contracting corporations -- and
has served their interests.
One of the key "New Democrats" is DLC favorite John Breaux, a
senator from Louisiana who distinguished himself by trying to protect
deregulation measures approved in early June by the Federal
Communications Commission. Breaux unsuccessfully proposed amendments to
help TV networks to further consolidate media ownership. His efforts
were even too flagrantly corporate for many Republicans on the Senate
Commerce Committee.
Despite its setbacks, the Democratic Leadership Council need not
despair. Most of the nation's political journalists, including
pro-Democrat pundits, insist that the party should not nominate someone
too far "left" -- which usually means anybody who's appreciably more
progressive than the DLC. That bias helps to account for the frequent
mislabeling of Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor who has risen to
the top tier of contenders for the 2004 Democratic presidential
nomination.
After seven years as governor, the Associated Press described Dean
as "a moderate at best on social issues and a clear conservative on
fiscal issues." The news service added: "This is, after all, the
governor who has at times tried to cut benefits for the aged, blind and
disabled, whose No. 1 priority is a balanced budget."
When Dean officially announced his presidential campaign on June
23, some news stories identified him with the left. It's a case of
mistaken identity. "He's really a classic Rockefeller Republican -- a
fiscal conservative and social liberal," according to University of
Vermont political scientist Garrison Nelson.
As a fiscal conservative, Dean is aligned with the status quo of
extreme inequities. That alignment was on display during a pair of June
22 appearances.
In an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," Dean delivered a one-two
punch against economic justice. He advocated raising the retirement age
for Social Security, and he called for slowing down the rate of
increases for Medicare spending.
Later in the day, at a Rainbow/PUSH Coalition forum, Dean went out
of his way to emphasize support for out-of-control military spending
after a rival candidate, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, said that "the only way
we're really going to close the (digital) divide in this country is to
start cutting the Pentagon budget and put that money into education."
Dean's response: "I don't agree with Dennis about cutting the Pentagon
budget when we're in the middle of a difficulty with terror attacks."
The next day, at his official campaign kickoff, Dean gave a
26-minute speech and didn't mention Iraq at all. It was a remarkable
performance from someone who has spent much of the last year pitching
himself as some kind of anti-war candidate.
Dean is already sending a message to his announced supporters among
peace and social-justice advocates: Thanks, suckers.
Usually, major-party candidates wait until they have a lock on the
presidential nomination before diving to the center. Eager to avoid
being hammered by the national press corps for supposed liberalism, Dean
hasn't bothered to wait.
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Norman Solomon is co-author of "Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn't
Tell You." For an excerpt and other information, go to:
www.contextbooks.com/new.html#target
