Over at &c, the New Republic’s blog, Reihan Salam, who’s sitting in for Noam Scheiber, did a post today that I obviously can’t leave alone. Under the title, “Where Have You Gone, New Democrats?”, Salam cites one of those perennial Nation obituaries for the DLC (they’ve been publishing them for twenty years), and then mourns at our grave since it would be nice if somebody in the Democratic camp had a strategy for dealing with the plight of low-income workers that’s a little broader and a lot more effective than pushing for “living wage” ordinances or demonizing Wal-Mart.The timing of this lament was interesting, insofar as my colleague The Moose, in his DLC-sponsored blog, made a similar case against Wal-Mart-o-phobia yesterday morning. And less than a month ago, our think tank, the Progressive Policy Institute published a well-regarded tax reform proposal by Paul Weinstein that included a super-charged version of the Earned Income Tax Credit, the longstanding New Democrat alternative to exclusive reliance on minimum wages as a strategy for supporting low-income working families.Salam refers to the New Democrat argument for a “win-win” society where wage subsidies are part of a national strategy to make our economy more competitive as though it were a relic of the distant past. Actually, the same argument can be found in virtually every issue of Blueprint magazine over the last three years, and more importantly, in the policy speeches of nearly every major Democratic candidate for president in 2004 (not to mention Tony Blair, who long ago adopted the DLC slogan of “expanding the winners’ circle”). “What we need is a national commitment to those who ‘work hard and play by the rules,'” says Salam. That message was, in fact, the centerpiece of John Edwards’ entire presidential campaign, in no small part because he completely incorporated the New Democratic approach to this issue. And the Kerry campaign pretty much adopted this approach after Edwards went on the ticket. Sure, the candidates should have talked about it a lot more, but they sure weren’t out there promoting “living wage” ordinances or other purely employer-based strategies for helping the working poor.The bottom line is that we New Democrats are still around, and still promoting ideas that pursue progressive goals in ways that make sense in the real world of politics and policy.I suggest that Reihan spend less time on the Nation’s site, and more time at ours, and other New Dem sites, like NDN and Third Way, if he wants to feel less lonely.
