Funny the DLC is so antiDean, given the sorry results of the November 2002 elections. Back then, their modis operandi seemed to be ascendent and in full flower among most of the Democrats who were out there talking and running. The messages reeked of their trademark poll/center obsession and GOP-Liteism ... and look what good it did them (US). Since they haven't changed their playbook a whit, it's hard to imagine them thinking that their sanctified (NOT-Dean) choices would have a better chance of winning the presidency in '04. But then, what's imagination got to do with it? Theirs seems to have been stuck at
dysfunctional for ages.
It looks like, as time went on, their presidential favorites got a little more firey on the stump because fire was working, big time, for Dean, who was not following the DLC's bland recipe. Unfortunately, they seem to resent this, big time, and are now directing much of their fire at him. They're shooting the messenger with live rounds for showing them that they were shooting blanks. Problem is, the DLCed seem to have forgotten that BUSH, not Dean, is OUR target. They also seem to have forgotten that Dean is a member of OUR posse, a leading member. And they seem not to realize that there is nothing that has proven that Dean has any less of a chance than the others (I'd say MORE) to get The Bad Guy and drive him and his gang outta town. Will they persist in their Dean sniping until they end up shooting US in the foot come November? Would they rather have Dean lose so they dont lose face, stature and control within the party?
I have to wonder, since these DLC folks seem as stubborn as they are unimaginative and risk-averse. They appear addicted to their comfy, kingpin status and loathe to relinquish it. They seem to worship 'The Center' with such slavish devotion that it matters not to them where this takes us. (As long as its not toward the Left , God forbid!) The middle is the Holy Grail, even when its dragged -- with their assistance -- into the middle of the RIGHT lane. Even when it's a mercurial losing bet. Perhaps they are so testy toward the progressive base and candidate Dean, who embraced it (and its opposition to the invasion of Iraq), because they fear a fresh wind will blow them off their throne. Perhaps they suspect they have little to offer anymore except to bully "MIDDLE MIDDLE MIDDLE!" and suck up polls like Rush sucks up pills.
I heard Al From, Mr DLC, on NPR last Sunday and he did seem to hint, a little darkly, that things could come out other than Dean. Perhaps the darkness was in the ear of the beholder, given my less than charmed sense of him. (Something else was going on at the time, so I cant put what he said more clearly into focus.) And he bitched about the others, for still not producing a hook that was punchy enough ... to blow away Dean, not Bush, it would seem. (A la David Brooks' goading?)
What a guy! Damned if you do and damned if you dont ... follow the DLC's program. Their sanctified candidates DID and now he's irked at the results, which, predictably, are weak. As if Al, of all people, has actual BOLD ideas. (Oh, I forgot, he has one: beat your base into obscure irrelevancy ... remove from cold storage when votes are needed.)
These hardcore DLCers, like Al From, are so woefully stuck in the past. They keep waiting for the second coming of Bill Clinton and the year 1992: The Comeback Kid comes back with the comeback decade in tow. Voodoo politics, magical thinking -- it's something wicked they're smoking. They seem deeply invested in a cultish belief that a Dem dazzler will eventually bubble up from that vat of flavorless mush they cook up. You know, the one that's got the heat turned on to a blazing
room temperature.
(My DLCed "they" includes those who aid and abet them in the media. To name two, if I hear James Carville or Paul Begala whinge over Gore's `dissing' of Lieberman when he endorsed Dean or Dean's `whimpy' request to McAuliffe to tone down the scattershot attacks ONE more time I'll ... $#@!!&*%$!)