The Chaff

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Thursday, July 3rd, 2008

Un-gaming the system

From comments over at Pandagon regarding whether Hillary Clinton got a “fair shake” in the Democratic Primary:
The system was not gamed against her, since it had been gamed for her by general DNC bubble-headed consensus.

Actually, you need to distinguish between the DNC and the DLC: the hard-core establishment, “run to the center”, “don’t piss off the GOP or they’ll say mean things about us” Democrats are the D-L-C (Democratic Leadership Council–maybe coalition, whatever). There has been a rift in the party between the DLC and the D-N-C (Democratic National Comittee) ever since Howard Dean took over the DNC in 2004. Much of the rift has to do with Dean’s strategy (fight in all 50 states, try to strengthen the party at all local levels, build for the long term, etc.) vs. the DLC strategy (only worry about swing states, play to the middle to win independents, concentrate on national elections only).

A huge chunk of “Left Blogistan” (particularly the Great Orange Satan) evolved specifically to fight the DLC’s triangulation strategy and force the party back towards liberal ideals; their main tatic was to run strong progressive challengers in every Democratic primary (see Lieberman in CT for the best example). Clinton’s biggest problem in Left Blogistan was her membership in and embracing of the DLC and its methods (which is pretty much the reason for her AUMF vote–so the GOP couldn’t call her “soft on terror” in the next election). It wasn’t her policies or her gender: it was her campaign staff and their strategy.

Obama is following Dean’s 50-state, local-strength, build-the-grassroots strategy, which is why the DLC folks wrote him off. (And since only DLC-types get on TV, so did the media.) And since Dean’s strategy resulted in Democratic gains in the 2006 elections, it’s probably a big reason for Obama’s success.

The real rift in the Democratic Party isn’t Clinton vs. Obama: it’s Terry McCauliffe and Mark Penn and James Carville vs Howard Dean and Daily Kos and countless grassroots organizations. The GOP machine (not the base, not the candidates, but the party machine itself) loves the DLC and its “don’t rock the boat attitude”: it’s won them elections since 1994 and it’s elected weak Democrats who won’t stand up against their conservative agenda. They need to make sure Obama loses so that the Dean/Obama strategy is abandoned, more than anything else.

I haven’t seen this kind of important piece of trivia make it onto the radar screen of any media analysts, either.

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