PHILADELPHIA. — The Democrats' presidential primary war between diehard liberal activists and pragmatic party centrists intensified this week at the Democratic Leadership Council's meeting here.
Democratic pollster Mark Penn, who polled for Bill Clinton, warned of a huge "security gap" among voters who trust President Bush and the GOP to do a better job than the Democrats to safeguard national security in the war on terrorism. "If Democrats can't close the security gap, then they can't be competitive in the next election," he said.
All of them warned that the party would lose next year's elections if it did not match the president's toughness on national defense.
The big unreported story at the DLC's meeting is that Mr. From is positioning his influential DLC network to back Mr. Dean's chief rival for the presidential nomination, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry.
Mr. Kerry voted for the congressional war resolution to send forces into Iraq, but he has also been sharply critical of Mr. Bush's failure to build a much stronger coalition for the war and for his handling of postwar operations.
Still, Mr. From points to Mr. Kerry's centrism on issues such as free trade, his support for welfare reform, and hints that school choice vouchers may be worth trying on an experimental basis.
"I think Kerry could be a very effective nominee. I think Kerry could run as a New Democrat ," Mr. From told me in an interview.
The DLC does not endorse candidates, but Will Marshall, who runs the DLC's Progressive Policy Institute, has been advising Mr. Kerry. And Al From's embrace of Mr. Kerry is the closest he has come to publicly backing a candidate. Notably, he mentioned no one else in the Democratic pack.
What worries Mr. From most is the party's weakness on defense in an age of terrorism. "The problem with is that we're not in the debate on national security," he said.
But grass-roots Democrats say the party's energy and anger right now is all on the antiwar, activist left which is fueling Mr. Dean's headlong drive for the nomination. The DLC had its day with Bill Clinton's skillful political use of centrist-leaning triangulation. Now, say Mr. Dean's supporters, "it's our turn."
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Before you get your panties in a bunch, here is some info to show that Kerry is anything but a centrist, anything but a corporate hooker. The DLC comes to Kerry on policy, not the other way around.
Here is a link to a favorable DLC article about Kerry's progressive, corporate crime-fighting economic plan:
"Kerry's long-term growth plan focused on measures that simultaneously promote fiscal discipline while encouraging the right kind of economic activity. He called for the elimination of "offshore tax havens and shelters that enable corporations and executives to evade an estimated $70 billion in taxes each year," and also recommitted himself to the legislation (itself based on a Progressive Policy Institute proposal) he earlier offered with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) to eliminate corporate subsidies in the tax code and the budget through a "base-closing commission" model.
Interestingly enough, Kerry called for elimination of a specific federal program -- the Fossil Energy Research and Development program that provides R&D for oil companies -- as part of an assault on corporate subsidies. Kerry is keeping the ball rolling in a new competition among leading Democrats to make hard choices about federal spending."
http://www.johnkerry.com/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=6144&security=1&news_iv_ctrl=-1http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=108&topic_id=9699"In the December 23, 2003 issue of the L.A. Times, Al From, of the Democratic Leadership Council asked, "Why is Howard Dean running away from Bill Clinton?" adding, "That's no way to build on the progress of the most successful Democratic president of our time."
http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/03/12/con03388.htmlDLC lines up against Dean's re-regulation remarksGov. Howard Dean delivered a good speech on "Enron Economics" in Houston Tuesday. It echoed Sen. John Edwards' lines about the Bush administration's determination to shift the tax burden from wealth to work, and earlier speeches by Sen. Joe Lieberman and others on the importance of corporate responsibility. It even appropriated a concept championed by the DLC, and endorsed by President Clinton, that we need a "new social contract for the 21st century, based on shared responsibility and our country's deepest values," to guide economic policy. The speech had us hoping that Gov. Dean might take to heart the challenge from Sens. John Kerry and John Edwards to offer America answers, not just anger.
Unfortunately, in an interview with a small group of reporters, Gov. Dean suggested that his answers might be a lot like his anger -- driven more by reflexive opposition to Bush than by a well thought-out effort to solve America's problems. According to Jim VandeHei of the Washington Post, Dean said the answer to the corporate excesses of recent years was "a comprehensive 're-regulation' of American business."
"The former Vermont Governor," reported VandeHei, "said he would reverse the trend toward deregulation pursued by recent presidents -- including, in some respects, Bill Clinton -- to help restore faith in scandal-plagued U.S. corporations and better protect U.S. workers." Dean also "listed likely targets for what he dubbed as his 're-regulation' campaign: utilities, large media companies, and any business that offers stock options. Dean did not rule out 're-regulating' the telecommunications industry, too."
http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=131&subid=192&contentid=252220 http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=108&topic_id=88535
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