It was Edwards, not Obama, who co-founded a DLC group

[ProSense]

DLC Update | March 13, 2000
New Dems Organize in Senate

Though U.S. Senators have always played a key role in the DLC and the New Democrat movement, we're pleased to see that nine senators have taken the formal step of organizing a New Democrat Coalition to work with the existing 64-member NDC in the House. The founding members of the Senate NDC include: Joe Lieberman (CT), Evan Bayh (IN), Mary Laundrieu (LA), John Edwards (NC), John Breaux (LA), Chuck Robb (VA), Blanche Lambert Lincoln (AR), Bob Kerrey (NE) and Bob Graham (FL).

It's also significant that key members of both House and Senate NDCs held a press conference last week to announce the formal introduction of the New Democrat education reauthorization bill sponsored by Senators Lieberman, Bayh and Landrieu, which originated at the DLC's affiliated think tank, the Progressive Policy Institute. We hope it will become the basis for a key reform of federal education policy this year. Joining the three Senate sponsors at the press conference were Senators Breaux, Lincoln, and Herb Kohl (WI), and Representatives Cal Dooley (CA), Adam Smith (WA), Joe Hoeffel (PA) and Jim Maloney (CT).

Both developments were big, and good news, for New Democrats.

link

[Mythsaje]

1. So. The DLC definitely doesn't like him NOW.

I think that's a definite point in his favor.

[Skwmom]

42. I wouldn't bet on that. When he spoke in front of AIPAC and

talked about going forward on Iran, he sure sounded like a DLC candidate to me. Furthermore, if he stays in until the convention, my money is on his pairing up with Clinton.

[jgraz]

2. Yet it is now Obama, not Edwards, who has adopted the ideals and rhetoric of the DLC

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4038330&mesg_id=4038330
http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2004/12/social-security-obama-and-ford.html

Without Edwards in this race, would the candidates even be talking about working-class issues?





Edit to add requested links.

[MH1]

3. Link?

And when did Edwards change? Right before running in this election, wasn't it?

[jgraz]

4. You ask, I deliver.

And he's been doing this for quite some time.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4038330&mesg_id=4038330


There's plenty more where that came from. Try googling "Obama Social Security".

http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2004/12/social-security-obama-and-ford.html

[ProSense]

6. You can get facts

here

More worrisome is this:

In 2006, Fortress paid Sen. John Edwards, candidate for the 2008 Democratic Party nomination for president, and the 2004 nominee for vice president, $479,512 for his consulting services, a part-time job. <1> The November 19, 2007 edition of the Wall Street Journal reported Edwards had invested $16 Million in Fortress and Fortress had bought poor performing New Orleans mortgages with the intention of foreclosing on properties in the Hurricane Katrina affected area through affiliates. The charges were repeated in the November 25, 2007 edition of FoxNews' Hannity's America.

Also, this.

[jgraz]

7. Not nearly as troubling

Edwards may have some ethical issues (or it may just be overblown BS), but the links I posted go directly to how Obama will govern. That's much more important, IMHO.

[ProSense]

8. I guess you didn't read through the links.

With Obama, i's not all talk: “It should be noted that Edwards received nearly $800,000 in a book contract from one of Murdoch’s companies, HarperCollins.”

A few examples of progressive leadership in action: here and here.

[jgraz]

23. I've read these articles before. They just don't have that much impact on me

It's relatively impossible for any moderately successful liberal to stay perfectly clean. I'm about as left as they come (and not a fraction as successful as Edwards), and even I am "tainted": I paid for my house with money from the evil Disney corporation (they bought my Pixar stock options when I left the company). If I ever run for office (not likely) you could make a pretty effective campaign ad about how I'm "beholden" to giant media corporations.

[ProSense]

25. Basically what you're saying is that everything

you've posted is spin!

[jgraz]

26. Hokay, that's certainly one interpretation

:crazy:

[ProSense]

28. It's called connect the dots

I'm about as left as they come (and not a fraction as successful as Edwards), and even I am "tainted"...If I ever run for office (not likely) you could make a pretty effective campaign ad about how I'm "beholden" to giant media corporations.

You said it not me, and it's evident in some of your threads and comments.

[jgraz]

31. It's always amazing which dots you choose to connect

Though never surprising.

[MH1]

13. Highly biased sources, but there is truth there

* Obama negotiated to get a healthcare bill through with tough opposition.

* Obama recognizes there is a fiscal problem looming with Social Security and will take steps to avert it. If I understand correctly he is advocating what I have been for a long time: raise the cap on SS taxes. It's either that or cut benefits, and I prefer his answer.

I have no problem with either of these positions of Obama's. Hopefully he will have good advisors as president, who will negotiate more toughly with the insurance industry. But negotiation will still be required.

Also from the link at your link:

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/09/23/in_illinois_obama_dealt_with_lobbyists/?page=3

Obama's campaign has said that his position on accepting such contributions has evolved and that he decided not to accept them for his presidential campaign after seeing how much influence lobbyists had in Washington during his first two years in the Senate.

Edwards' supporters are hardly ones who should be complaining about a candidate's positions "evolving."

[jgraz]

24. It's funny how we all have our different versions of "truth"

Here's mine:

* At the request of the insurance lobbyists, Obama watered down a decent healthcare bill into something which did nothing but obstruct the implementation of real reform.

* Obama insists on parroting the Rethug line about a Social Security "crisis", when in fact there is none.

[MH1]

27. heh, you are right about that

* a healthcare bill that doesn't get passed isn't "decent", it's nothing.

* there is a pending (not exactly imminent) fiscal problem with social security. I don't believe Obama ever used the word "crisis" because it's not. If he did, please provide a link, and I mean to a credible, original source, not blog spin and spew.

[jgraz]

37. .

* a healthcare bill that doesn't get passed isn't "decent", it's nothing.

I don't get why it's so hard to understand that NOTHING is often much better than SOMETHING if that SOMETHING is shite. For example, the Medicare drug coverage is SOMETHING, but the fact that it's there makes passing real coverage much more difficult. And it's enough to snow a few of the the rubes into thinking the Repukes actually care about them.


* there is a pending (not exactly imminent) fiscal problem with social security. I don't believe Obama ever used the word "crisis" because it's not. If he did, please provide a link, and I mean to a credible, original source, not blog spin and spew.

Now, couldn't you have Googled this yourself? Put in Obama "social security" crisis and hit "I'm feeling lucky"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/11/09/obama-refers-to-social-s_n_71936.html

Obama Refers To "Social Security Crisis"

November 9, 2007 12:50 PM

In an interview yesterday, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) explicitly used the word "crisis" in reference to Social Security, seemingly contradicting a progressive refrain that such talk is a red herring advanced by proponents of privatization.

"You know, Senator Clinton says that she's concerned about Social Security but is not willing to say how she would solve the Social Security crisis," Obama told the National Journal. "I think voters aren't going to feel real confident that this is a priority for her."

Less than two weeks ago, Obama seemed to take the opposite position. "I absolutely agree that Social Security is not in crisis," he said during the most recent Democratic debate.

Yet Obama has frequently addressed what he describes as a Social Security funding shortfall, which many experts say is overstated. "I can't understand how Obama can be this out of touch," economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote recently. "As a political matter, I don't understand why he would essentially try to undermine the first big victory progressives won against the Bush administration and the rightward tilt of the Beltway consensus."

If that's not "credible" enough for you, there are 220,000 other hits for you to choose from. Don't make me post them all. :P

Edit: Here's Krugman's column. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/16/opinion/16krugman.html Worth a read.

[MH1]

40. 1) The bill in question was better than nothing

2) You really have a way of convincing someone to listen to your side, don't you? :sarcasm:

Btw, I noted that he used that word in an interview with the National Journal. Context matters.

[jgraz]

41. How is it better than nothing?

I've told you why I thought nothing was better, and you're responding with axiomatic assertions. Care to back up your claims?

[jackson_dem]

44. While the DLC attacks Edwards today and praises Obama. Al From isn't naive

[cali]

5. Does this really mean anything- other than he's

presenting a very different platform than that which he supported in the Senate? The truth is the DLC doesn't support him now, and his message is very different than that which the DLC supports.

I get pissed off when people accuse Obama of being DLC too, and I've thrown Edwards' DLC affliliations back at them, but the truth is, it doesn't say much about what he's espousing now.

[ProSense]

9. Yes it means something:

clarification!

[sandnsea]

10. Only if a "lifetime of fighting" means anything n/t

[Kucinich4America]

11. Some of the DLC'ers mentioned in that article are now backing Obama

Adam Smith, who was a "DLC'er" before there even was a DLC (i.e. closet Repuke) is the Washington state chair of Obama's campaign.

Now we tolerate Adam Smith, for the most part around here, and he's not quite in Nelson/Landrieu territory, but still it's troubling to see these sort of endorsements going to a candidate who claims he is not now, nor has he ever been, a member of the DLC.

[itsrobert]

12. True. But you won't hear that from the Edwards bashers

thanks

[ProSense]

15. The candidates don't force people to support them

The fact that they do is a sign of leadership.

How to fight for a progressive agenda:

Some people might read the Nunn statement and think it sounds like Barack Obama. But whereas Obama pledges to reach across partisan lines, and outside them as well, to build support for a progressive agenda, he's not talking about abandoning his party and sharing power directly with people who don't share his (or Nunn's) assessment of the challenges facing America, and who would oppose any progressive agenda with every political weapon available. Best I can tell, Obama's offering an extended hand to the GOP that he's willing to make into a fist. And his argument with some in the Democratic Party, most notably John Edwards, over how to enact progressive policies, mainly reflects differences of opinion on how to marshal public opinion to reverse most of the GOP policies of the Bush era.

more

A few examples of progressive leadership in action: here and here.

The media is not rushing to install (or gushing over the idea of) Obama as president!

[cali]

33. yeah and Heath Schuler is supporting Edwards

as are other blue dogs/DLCers. So what to both.

[dailykoff]

14. Kick, kick, kick for a little sense.

This one has got to be on auto-spam because it refuses to go away.

:kick: :kick: :kick:

[fedupinBushcountry]

16. Ditto

:kick:

[Snotcicles]

17. Like a marriage, it might be a good at first, but if it gets abusive leave. nt

[OHdem10]

18. Bill Clinton was cofounder of DLC long before Edwards ever

ran for Senate.

The Irony is Bill Clinton did not follow the DLC Line because
he knew how to win and it was not DLC.

A couple of years back a group At Democrats.COM researched
very accurately and proved how Bill Clinton won because
he did not let the DLC constrict him.

[dailykoff]

20. NAFTA wasn't DLC?

Welfare reform and Telecom Act weren't DLC? Give me a freakin' break.

[Kucinich4America]

38. Actually, NAFTA was Poppy Bush's baby.

But he left it to Bill, and Bill didn't kill it.

[dkf]

19. The DLC is sooo old.

Irrelevant.

[dailykoff]

21. Except in swiftboat land,

where it is eternally young and beautiful, barf.

[dailykoff]

22. Edwards, Lieberman, Laundrieu, Kerrey, and Bayh

just in case anybody refused to read the OP. Or more specifically,

Joe Lieberman (CT), Evan Bayh (IN), Mary Laundrieu (LA), John Edwards (NC), John Breaux (LA), Chuck Robb (VA), Blanche Lambert Lincoln (AR), Bob Kerrey (NE) and Bob Graham (FL).

[martymar64]

36. Edwards is the only one to repudiate the DLC position

The rest of those names are traitors to America. Especially Lieberman. His open loyalties are to Israel and the Republicans, not us. He needs to be deported to Israel yesterday.

[dailykoff]

39. Eddy promised to nuke Iran at a conference in Herzliya -- in 2007.

Edwards, in part:

Iran must know that the world won’t back down. The recent UN resolution ordering Iran to halt the enrichment of uranium was not enough. We need meaningful political and economic sanctions. We have muddled along for far too long. To ensure that Iran never gets nuclear weapons, we need to keep ALL options on the table, Let me reiterate – ALL options must remain on the table.

"Let me reiterate – ALL options must remain on the table." Thus sayeth not-still-DLC Edwards.

http://www.herzliyaconference.org/Eng/_Articles/Article.asp?ArticleID=1728&CategoryID=223

[AntiFascist]

29. Um, what exactly was the nature of this Federal education reform policy?

It sounds like they were trying to take the DLC in a direction that we don't normally criticize the DLC about. I'm no fan of Lieberman, but I wouldn't criticize something just because I see his name attached to it, unless it relates to PNAC.

[OzarkDem]

30. Is that why Corporate America and GOP'ers are backing Edwards?

Oh, wait. No they're not. They must know something you don't know.


Edwards has been very open about changing his POV, standing up for what he believes in.

You won't find a single DLC'er or corporate backer who supports him now, and for most of us, that's a positive thing.

[cali]

34. Sure you will. Heath Schuler for one. Don't get much more conservative

dem than that.

[robbedvoter]

32. Where are they now? Joementum - "independent", Graham - with Bloomberg

and Edwards reinvented self as "progressive"...funny.

[AP]

35. And by 2003 they wouldn't even invite him to their summer or winter conventions.

[jackson_dem]

43. Yet it is Edwards, not Obama, who is criticized by the DLC while Obama is praised

[pampango]

45. What's more important - what JE did before 2004 or what he has said since then.

His position on important campaign issues is great.

It seems to me that one would have to either believe that up until 2004 he was a progressive politician who was astute enough to take contrary positions at times for political reasons. Or it is hard to tell if he is not really progressive, but with the freedom of being out of office after 2004 he has reinvented (perhaps genuinely) himself with progressive rhetoric and issues.

With his connection (past) connection to the DLC, IWR, etc. most here probably wouldn't have given him the time of day before 2004. The only real question (which with any politician is difficult to answer) is how authentic his/her professed beliefs really are and how much are they the politically astute position to take.