Meanwhile, back at the DLC, Al From and Bruce Reed are, no doubt, preparing yet another one of their memos imploring Democrats to reject the dreaded Dean, turn away from Mondale-McGovernism and embrace the true New Democrat faith. To paraphrase Bob Dylan: “There’s something happening here and you don’t know what it is, do you Mr. From?”
In an interesting article in the latest American Prospect, Garance Franke-Ruta reports that the DLC’s general cluelessness this election season has not been lost among many longtime New Democrat supporters. Many are starting to feel that the DLC has lost its way and appears frighteningly unaware of the many ways in which today’s political challenges and today’s Democratic party differ from the challenges and party faced by the DLC in mid-1980’s.
The article quotes Simon Rosenberg, whose New Democrat Network has traditionally been closely allied with the DLC, as follows: “Saying this is like ‘68, like ‘72–all of that is irrelevant. We are in a different era…..We’re in an unsettled time….What’s not going to happen is a restoration of the old order.”
Another veteran DLC supporter says: “You can’t walk away from [Al From’s] accomplishments.” But “at this point, he and the DLC are more trying to re-create the past in terms of battles and achievements rather than look at the landscape as it is now.”
Amen.