Electability: Those Who Forget History...

Are Doomed To Repeat It.

The more we in Dean Nation read - and ask our friends to read - much of the political commentary that followed the 2002 elections, the better off we'll be. Rick Perlstein had a gem in Mother Jones. John Nichols had another in The Nation. (I'd provide links to similar commentaries in major newspapers were those pieces not today in costly web-based archives).

The New York Times' Matt Bai quotes members of the Democratic Leadership Council because he and many members of the national media [wrongly, see below] credit the organization with Bill Clinton's electoral victory in November of 1992. Strangely, however, Bai and others fail to fault the DLC with the Democrats' numerous losses in November of 2002 -- "the worst midterm performance by a party outside the White House since the Republicans in Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 1934."

Democrats can justly criticize the DLC for lack of a backbone. Or we can go after the DLC where it hurts - and where the media will take notice: for lack of electability.

[Note: James Carville, Clinton's top campaign strategist and a liberal Democrat, steered the then-Arkansas Governor towards a focus on the economy and health care, the two issues that later won him the presidency. Historians also remind us that during Clinton's first year in office, he distanced himself from the DLC, prompting a backlash from none other than Joe Lieberman.]

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