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Tilting
Democrats in The Presidential Race
by
Norman Solomon
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.
Norman Solomon is Executive
Director of the Institute for Public Accuracy (www.accuracy.org) and a syndicated
columnist. His latest book is Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn’t Tell
You (Context Books, 2003) with Reese Erlich. For an excerpt and other
information, go to: www.contextbooks.com/new.html#target. Email: mediabeat@igc.org