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August 28, 2008, 0:00 a.m. Obama Repudiates the ModeratesThe tiny leftist tail that wagged the dog in 2003. By David Freddoso Denver — Tonight, Barack Obama will try to convince America that he is a moderate, ideologically reasonable candidate. If his July 2004 keynote at the Democratic National Convention is any indicator, he may bring up issues of personal responsibility, or discuss the fact that, as he has said in the past, “fatherhood does not end at conception� — an idea which actually contradicts his position on abortion. Before you buy the idea that Obama is a centrist, it...

It helped launch the last Democratic president and has pushed and prodded every Democratic candidate since Bill Clinton to adopt its centrist positions on issues from budget discipline to welfare. But when the Democratic Leadership Council met over the weekend in the shadow of Barack Obama's Chicago headquarters, he didn't bother to stop by. Is it losing its clout? Its members hope not, sidestepping Obama's refusal to see them and politely urging him to consider their approaches. "We asked him," said Al From, the founder of the group. "I hope he'll listen to some of the ideas we've talked about."...

It seems that Carolina’s fair-haired boy is starting to falter. According to the NYT OPINIONATOR’S opinion Senator Edwards is in danger of being marginalized before a primary vote is cast. How poorly is John Edwards faring in his bid to become president of the United States? Writing on his personal blog, Marc Cooper, a contributing editor for The Nation, suggests that “the already sputtering Edwards’ campaign” hit “a definitive speed bump” yesterday when Edwards failed to win the endorsement of the Service Employees International Union. Cooper thinks “the much-coveted endorsement of Big Labor’s biggest union seemed to slip one notch...

The feud between left-wing bloggers and the centrist-leaning Democratic Leadership Council is getting hotter at a time when activists on both sides say party unity is critical to winning back the White House next year. The groups held dueling conferences this month, and the Yearly Kos Convention clearly came out on top. It drew 1,500 liberal activists — including 500 bloggers — and a half-dozen Democratic presidential candidates, led by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. The New York Democrat has been embraced by the DLC as one of its own. The DLC drew 350 elected officials to its conference but was...

"They'll find their way back to the middle. And if they don't, they won't win." So says a blunt Harold Ford Jr., chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council, of his party's current crop of presidential candidates. The question is just how many would-be Democratic presidents recognize the wisdom of his words. Mr. Ford is in a feisty mood throughout our chat, as well he might be given the shelling his group has recently endured at the keyboards of the far left. Skip back 15 years, and the DLC stood as the proud architect of Bill Clinton's "New Democrat" campaign victory....

The much ballyhooed debate on "Meet the Press" between former Congressman Harold Ford Jr. and Markos Moulitsas, publisher of the liberal Daily Kos website, was instructive for what it revealed about both the divisions in the Democratic Party and the underlying disingenuousness of both factions. Ford was defending the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), an organization that holds itself out as centrist, urges the Democratic Party to move in that direction, and proudly claims former President Bill Clinton as its most honored member. Moulitsas was there to represent the more leftist wing of the party, which has used his website to...

A first-tier presidential candidate was the keynote speaker at a recent trade association convention held just outside Washington. The candidate began the evening by telling the crowd: "His eye is on the sparrow, we know that. . . . And we are here tonight to give praise and thanks to He who made it possible for us to be with each other this evening." The candidate spent a lot of time talking about the importance of hard work and personal responsibility, quoting another thinker's motto: "If I've accomplished anything in life, it is because I've been willing to work hard."...

Markos Moulitsas to Debate Harold Ford Jr. on ‘Meet the Press’ By Noel Sheppard | August 11, 2007 - 19:33 ET After the press spent last weekend gushing over liberal bloggers with nothing but glowing coverage of the YearlyKos convention in Chicago, the media's fascination with the Netroots continued with reckless abandon this weekend. On Saturday, the Washington Post published an op-ed by Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas, to be followed by a debate on Sunday's "Meet the Press" between the head Kossack and the chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council, Harold Ford, Jr. Are media recognizing the power of...

The Honorable Harold Ford, Jr. Chairman Democratic Leadership Council 600 Pennsylvania Ave., SE, Suite 400 Washington, D.C. 20003 Dear Rep. Ford, I appeared with you on the O’Reilly Factor on July 31, 2007, in my capacity as spokesman for FreeRepublic.com to discuss politics on the Internet. The host, Bill O’Reilly, falsely accused FreeRepublic.com of having the following comments on its site: "Homosexuals are dogs," "I hate blacks," "Hillary Clinton should be assassinated," and "A stray bullet should kill her." To be blunt, those comments were made up by the O’Reilly Factor. The O’Reilly Factor was not able to provide documentation...

Dan Drezner, commenting on the fact that the current crop of Democratic presidential candidates are passing up the centrist DLC's summer meeting in favor of speaking at YearlyKos, says: The fact that YearlyKos matters more than the DLC seems like pretty damning and uncomplicated evidence to me of where the party has traveled over the last four years. Actually, I think it is a little more complicated than the simple "left vs. centrist" spin that most people have put on this. In substantive terms, after all, the three main Democratic candidates this year are only slightly to the left of...

NASHVILLE — Gov. Phil Bredesen suggested himself as a model for Democratic presidential nominees Monday, though disavowing any interest in a national position and declining to state a preference for any of his party’s presidential candidates. “If one of those presidential candidates who chose not to come here today can sell themselves in Tennessee, they can sell themselves in mainstream America,” Bredesen told the Democratic Leadership Council. None of the Democratic presidential candidates spoke at the DLC gathering, though they were invited. Still, presidential politics was a topic in speeches by former President Clinton, Bredesen and three other Democratic governors...

NOT very long ago, the Democratic Leadership Council was a maker of presidents — or, at least, the maker of a president. In 1991, Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas, then the council’s chairman, elucidated the “New Democrat” ethos and previewed the themes of his presidential candidacy (“opportunity, responsibility, community”) with a speech at the centrist group’s annual conference. “It became the blueprint for my campaign message,” Mr. Clinton later wrote in his autobiography. He added, “By embracing ideas and values that were both liberal and conservative, it made voters who had not supported Democratic presidential candidates in years listen to...

Members of the Democratic Leadership Council meet in Tennessee this weekend and the man who rode their sensible ideas right into the White House, Bill Clinton, will be there. So will 300 current officeholders from around the country. But guess who won’t? Well, for starters, one Hillary Rodham Clinton. She’ll be in South Carolina, then home to Chappaqua on Sunday. And Barack Obama, why he’s scheduled to be in Iowa and then home to Chicago for most of the weekend. Not John Edwards either or even any of the second-tier candidates like New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. In fact, not...

Bill Clinton will be there. So will 300 officeholders from more than 45 states. But one thing will be missing when Democrats gather in Tennessee this weekend to discuss how to appeal to moderate, independent-minded voters in 2008: the Democratic presidential field. Not a single one of the eight presidential candidates plans to attend the Democratic Leadership Council's summer meeting, a snub that says less about the centrist DLC than it does about a nomination process that rewards candidates who pander to their parties' hardened cores while ignoring everybody else. "They have tunnel vision," DLC founder Al From said of...

It's du Sextidi de Frimaire and already the Democrat Jacobins are in the midst of their Reign of Terror of sending their own Girondists to the metaphorical guillotine. The object of their wrath in this case is Al From of the Democratic Leadership Council. So how bad do the DUmmies want to purge From and the DLC Girondists from their party? The title of this DUmmie THREAD will give you a hint: "Al From is a cancer on the Democratic Party." So let us now watch the Democrats begin their internal Reign of Terror in Bolshevik Red while the...

The results of the '06 election are in. The left wing of the Democratic Party has taken over Congress. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is the Speaker. Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) is the new chairman of the Ways and Means panel. Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is majority leader, and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) runs the Environment Committee. The left is empowered. But how did it achieve these majorities? It did so lifted by the wings of moderate, centrist Democrats who mastered their GOP opponents throughout the country. It was not liberals who defeated Republican incumbents in the House and Senate. It...

The Internal Revenue Service has revoked the tax-exempt status of the Democratic Leadership Council on the grounds it mainly benefited a private group – Democrats running for office – rather than the community at large. The DLC has countered with a lawsuit in federal court, and the outcome could affect the increasing use of tax-exempt organizations by politicians and lobbyists, according to a Forbes magazine article headlined "The Democrats’ Little Tax Secret.” The conflict is not without its ironic twists. For one, the DLC’s chairman during the years the IRS claims it wasn’t bipartisan enough was Sen. Joe Lieberman, recently...

"The Democratic Party, and even the centrists within it, must sever all ties with Al From and the DLC. They must not be allowed access to Democratic Congressional leaders. They must not be allowed a role in the nomination process in 2008. They must not be allowed a presence at the Democratic convention. By supporting Bloomberg, Al From and the DLC have indicated they no longer are interested in participating in the Democratic Party and we should see to it that they get their way."

The ABC television network is justifiably being swamped with literally tens of thousands of complaints about its plans to air a miniseries entitled "The Path to 9/11" on September 10 and 11. According to those who have seen the script, the show dwells heavily on claims that the Clinton administration was too distracted by other issues to heed warnings about al Qaeda, or to kill Osama bin Laden when it had the chance. ABC's main reaction to reports of such inflammatory and partisan inaccuracies has been to claim that its details are based on the findings of the 9/11 Commission....

Q: Are bloggers too powerful? A: Do I think they're important? Yes. Do I think the [bloggers] and Al Sharpton alone are the future of the Democratic Party? No! Welcome in, contribute, but it's about winning in November and moving the country forward, not about a firing squad in a circle. -- Q&A with U.S. representative Rahm Emanuel, Aug. 28th issue of New York magazine I badly want to move on to another topic in this column space -- there is very little in the world that is less interesting than the Democratic Leadership Council and their ilk -- but...

The Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) is a more centrist element of today’s Democratic Party. After Sen. Lieberman’s primary defeat last week, I decided to go to the DLC website and see how the centrist Democrats were reacting to their defeat as well as the victory of the far left. There wasn’t a canned response at that time. I had hoped that the DLC would have prepared both win and lose positions in advance, but apparently the party just can’t figure out how to pander to their base of pacifists, appeasers, geo-political procrastinators, Bush-haters, socialists etc. while at the same time...

...Kilgore can try all he likes to dishonestly claim the DLC is just some low-budget idealistic garage band pursuing their supposedly innocent and not-yet-realized dreams of prominence. And it's likely true - there are more than a handful of corporate lobbyists in Washington shedding tears now that the DLC's star is falling and people have woken up to the DLC's destructive influence, transparently corrupt agenda, and election-losing advice. But this persecuted underdog fable likening the DLC to the main character in the movie Rudy is positively laughable. Moreover, even if you accept Kilgore's lie that the official DLC organization itself...

Six years ago Joe Lieberman was the darling of the Democratic Party. In a salute to the Connecticut senator’s character, moral fiber and steadfast moderation, Al Gore chose him to be the party’s vice presidential candidate. That made sense, as Lieberman enjoyed many positive traits Gore lacked. Lieberman’s 2000 nomination proved that the Democratic party still understood that most Americans value moderation over far-left liberalism. On Tuesday, the Democratic Party discarded that tired old notion by ousting the pro-war, strong-on-national-security Connecticut centrist in favor of an extreme liberal anti-war Democratic challenger: millionaire Connecticut businessman Ned Lamont. Lamont’s candidacy was fueled...

Today I'm going to quote extensively from an article by Chris Bowers at a Web site called MyDD (www.mydd.com), "DD" in this case standing for direct democracy. The article lays out something that I've been chaotically attempting to think about for some time, and does it more clearly than I've been able to manage. The question before the house, as it has been for some time, is: "Why are the Democrats having trouble getting elected even though their opponents lie, cheat and steal with bewildering frequency?" Below is just a partial answer, I think, but it's a darned good start....

THE CENTER-left Democratic Leadership Council has figured out rightly that the American middle class feels it is too low on the Bush totem pole, so the DLC has devised an American Dream Initiative that promises to relieve the middle class in ways that would never occur to the Bushies -- while helping to elect more Democrats. On the politics, the American Dream Initiative is brilliant. The Bushies clearly don't understand how it looks to the heartland when the administration tries to get rid of half of the IRS auditors who investigate inheritance tax returns. Bush's signing of the bankruptcy bill...

DENVER – Moderate Democrats trying to get back into a debate now dominated by liberals offered yesterday what they hope is a centrist path back to the White House, showcasing potential presidential candidates and unveiling a Hillary Clinton-produced “American Dream Initiative” designed to appeal to the middle class. Hillary Clinton The occasion was the annual meeting of the Democratic Leadership Council, a centrist group that propelled Bill Clinton to the presidency and has been long favored by the party's officeholders from states that lean Republican. The backdrop for the summer session was the growing pressure from the left to make...

Centrist Democrats, led by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, yesterday unveiled a policy manifesto to win back Congress and the White House and distance the party from its clamorous left wing. Highlights included proposals to make college tuition and home buying more accessible, expand the availability of health care, and provide greater retirement security, all leavened with a smidgen of Bush-bashing. The war in Iraq, the fulcrum for angry splits between liberals and centrists in several races nationwide, was scarcely mentioned. Proposals included directing more federal money to states to lower the costs of college, expanding the home-mortgage...

DENVER— Gov. Bill Richardson came to the plate late in the batting order on Monday, but joined other possible presidential contenders in taking swings at the Bush administration. He did that while touting his own statistics as a governor. << snip >> Richardson was one of four potential candidates for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination to speak to the centrist think-tank group... But Richardson was the last of the bunch to speak, following Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y. Clinton, who spoke in the morning, was clearly the biggest draw of the...

Testing lines for 2008, Democrats with presidential ambitions accused President Bush and the Republicans of making a mess of the economy and Iraq while arguing that Democrats offer the best hope for a rising middle class that's preferred the GOP. "They're not taking care of America. They're bankrupting our country and failing to address the problems," Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., said Monday, citing skyrocketing gas, college and health care costs. Speaking to the Democratic Leadership Council, a centrist think tank, she and three other yet-declared presidential candidates argued that Republicans have ignored the very people who make up much...

Hillary Rodham Clinton is not at her best when she is being compared to her husband. So you have to wonder why she invites it. Monday found her in Denver at the annual meeting of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, unveiling what the DLC calls "The American Dream Initiative." It is a project that she has led for a year, and that could help form an agenda for her own bid for the White House — if, that is, she decides to run. [snip] They are variations on many of the programs that were hallmarks of Bill Clinton's presidency. But...

DENVER - Moderate Democrats think they have the key to winning back power in Washington and across the country - a package of economic proposals aimed at giving every American a shot at reaching the middle class. "We thought it was important and necessary to rekindle the American dream," said Gov. Tom Vilsack of Iowa, a potential 2008 presidential candidate and the chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council, a centrist think tank. [snip] The centrist organization, best known for helping Bill Clinton secure the White House in 1992, was to unveil Monday its "American Dream Initiative," which lays out policies...

Moderates: Dems should talk about religion By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer Published: Sunday, July 23, 2006 Updated: Sunday, July 23, 2006 DENVER (AP) - Rather than being bashful, Democrats should openly talk about their religious beliefs and moral values, say moderates urging the party to court voters beyond the traditional Democratic base to win control of the GOP-run Congress this fall and the presidency in 2008. "If we continue to have this perception in the Democratic Party that faith can't be discussed, we'll continue to lose elections based on wedge issues," said Terrance Carroll, a Colorado state representative. The...

At a time when centrism has become a dirty word in some Democratic Party circles, hundreds of the party's avowed moderates are convening in Denver this weekend to discuss their agenda for this fall's election and the presidential contest in 2008. The annual meeting of the Democratic Leadership Council, a group that came to prominence in connection with President Clinton's electoral victory in 1992, takes place as the organization has become a lightning rod for criticism from liberal Web-based activists known as the netroots. The Denver gathering is scheduled to hear from the putative Democratic frontrunner for 2008, Senator Clinton,...

Why haven't Democratic elites embraced Clintonism, given the former president's success? As the 2006 and 2008 elections loom ever nearer, Democrats are racking their brains for a political philosophy that can return the party to power. Everywhere, we hear the same lament: If only Democrats had a proven formula for winning elections and governing the country. Fortunately, we do: It's called Clintonism. By any logical standard, Democrats of every stripe ought to be embracing Clintonism and its central tenets -- providing people with more opportunity while demanding more responsibility, and being willing to try new methods to realize progressive ideals....

The liberal challenge to Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) escalated Friday when the political arm of MoveOn.org, an influential online advocacy group, endorsed the political newcomer opposing his bid for renomination. Gaining the support of MoveOn's political action committee was Ned Lamont, a businessman who wants to unseat Lieberman largely because of the veteran lawmaker's staunch support for the war in Iraq. The group announced its backing after polling MoveOn's members in Connecticut. MoveOn has emerged as a leading voice for left-leaning activists, and the endorsement marks the first time that its PAC has sought to unseat an incumbent Democratic senator....

What is it about peace and prosperity and a two term Democratic Presidency that Democrats don't like?According to one of the leading liberal bloggers, Markos Moulitsas (or as he is known in the blogosphere - Kos), it is nothing that terribly significant. The head of the netroots high command suggests in Sunday's Washington Post, "Despite all his successes -- and eight years of peace and prosperity is nothing to sneeze at -- he never broke the 50-percent mark in his two elections. Regardless of the president's personal popularity, Democrats held fewer congressional seats at the end of his presidency than...

RICHMOND, Virginia, April 11, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Governor Timothy M. Kaine of Virginia refused to sign a proposed constitutional amendment yesterday that would ban same-sex marriage in the state, and said he will vote against the bill when it comes before Virginians in November. Although Gov. Kaine said he opposed same-sex marriage, he said the proposed bill could have consequences for all unmarried couples, heterosexual as well as homosexual, the Washington Post reported today. The Virginia state constitution already identifies marriage as between a man and a woman, but supporters of the amendment say the law needs to be clarified...

    Can Hillary Walk the Line?By Lisa Fabrizio Published 3/1/2006 12:07:29 AM All does not seem rosy in the world of those supporting the nascent White House aspirations of Hillary Rodham Clinton. Many have noted the rumblings of some on the far left of her party toward certain of her stances, if you can call them that. In response, she has begun to tiptoe the tightrope between the moderate and leftist camps of the Democrats' big tent. You may remember "Governor" Charles Durning's rendition of "The Sidestep" in the otherwise forgettable movie version of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas....

Liberal Democratic Party leaders are far more worried about government power than they are about fighting America's enemies, the founder of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council said. In yet another stinging critique of the Democrats' liberal wing, DLC founder and chief executive Al From said his party could lose this year's midterm elections if it continues sending a message to voters that it is weak on national security issues in the war on terrorism. "Despite all that has happened since November 2004, I fear the 2006 national election could turn on whether voters' unease with the Democrats on national security...

I’ve spent no time on Free Republic today, because I’ve been monitoring my favorite nut-job sites to see whether or not they were actually going to go ahead with their incredibly stupid plans to attempt a filibuster against the Senate Confirmation of Judge Alito. I’m telling you folks, if you ever wanted to see Liberal madness in action, just pop on over to one of these Democrat web sites. But I warn you, please do so before eating if you don’t want to risk tossing your cookies. What you will join me in witnessing, is the inward implosion of the...

Some centrist Democrats say attacks by their party leaders on the Bush administration's eavesdropping on suspected terrorist conversations will further weaken the party's credibility on national security.

The latest imbroglio over the revelation that the government eavesdropped into the international phone calls of U.S. citizens does not set the Moose's antlers on fire. The Administration is going to have to offer a better explanation for why they failed to go to court to get authorization. And we should also have an inquiry into a leak that might have endangered national security. In the aftermath of 9/11, America learned that it was ill-prepared for this new threat. Old laws dealing with new technologies were an anachronism. The "FISA" process, if not the authorization, was often burdensome and slow...

If there is anyone in this country who has a right to a grudge against George W. Bush, it is Joe Lieberman, Connecticut's junior Democrat in the United States Senate. After all, Lieberman was sure he was going to be inaugurated as America's first Jewish vice president in January 2001. He certainly came close enough to victory but, along with Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore, he found himself having to swallow an electoral college defeat following the bitter dispute in Florida which decided the election. As such Lieberman is an icon not just of American Jewish achievement but as a...

Amid the hoopla about crime reduction in New York City, an equally impressive story has sometimes gone overlooked 1,200 miles to the south. In New Orleans, a city long known for its Big Easy lifestyle, a concerted effort at police reform and crime reduction over the past six years has achieved considerable success -- and spawned lessons for other cities. http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=119&subsecID=213&contentID=2155

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton just might have found herself a new "Sister Souljah" in Kanye West. After all, it was Team Clinton who, so many years ago, taught the Democrat party how to win back disaffected white, blue-collar voters, while maintaining its vice-like grip on nine out of ten black voters. A dirty secret within the Democrat party, the history of the Democrat race-based voting strategy is an important one, riddled with critical implications for 2008...

Blue Dog Coalition 12-point reform plan for restoring fiscal sanity 1. Require a balanced budget. • Blue Dogs support a Constitutional amendment to require a balanced budget every year except in times of war or national emergency. • Blue Dogs believe a Balanced Budget Amendment is the only way to ensure fiscal discipline in Congress. • The Blue Dog Balanced Budget Amendment would require a three-fifths vote of both the House and Senate to increase the debt limit or to waive the balanced budget requirement. • In addition, the Blue Dog Balanced Budget Amendment protects Social Security from benefit cuts...

One hot and humid weekend this past July, America's leading Democrats -- including some of the early favorites for their party's 2008 presidential nomination such as Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN), Governor Tom Vilsack (D-IA), and Governor Mark Warner (D-VA) -- gathered in Columbus, Ohio at a conference hosted by the centrist Democratic Leadership Council. Predictably, the press had a hard time controlling its glee when Senator Clinton was announced as the point-person to lead the DLC's new political offensive -- code name "American Dream Initiative" -- to define the party's agenda for 2006 and 2008. As...

Memo to: Hillary Clinton, Her Indescribable Holiness from: Irv, New York Impresario re: your Presidential Gig Hillary, baby, Yes, I know the last time I offered you show biz advice, it was about your senatorial shtick. I said it wouldn’t work, and offered several reasons. You were right and I was wrong. But now you’re looking at a bigger league. You’ve put yourself in a great position to have a shot at the presidential gig. The Democratic Leadership Committee has just made you chairman (you don’t mind being referred to as a man, do you?) of the effort to write...

8/3/2005 Democrats set up fake organizations to support gun control policies Democratic Leadership Council use PR firm to push more Gun Laws A Washington based PR Firm called DCS - Internet Advocacy Group thats used by a list of who's who in the Democrat party as well as the official PR firm for the Democrat leadership Council (DLC) that Sen. Hillary Clinton is the 'Chair' member as well as reportedly hand pick DCS to do ALL of the DLC PR work. DCS Has register a bogus 'Pro-Gun' sportsmen group in the attempt to make it appear as hunters and trap...

Who in heaven's name is writing missus clinton's speeches? A "handling the hillary dud factor" AFTERWORD     by Mia T, 8.04.05   They turned our bridge to the 21st century into a tunnel back into the 19th century. Back us out of that Republican tunnel, fill it in, go back across the bridge.... We'll have a giant celebration when we come back to Columbus in 2020. There's nothing more wonderful than making dreams come true. hear hillary clinton address to the Democratic Leadership Council Columbus, Ohio 7.31.05 ho in heaven's name is writing missus clinton's speeches? They make...