[Mb-civic] D.L.C.: Democrats Love Corporations?

Fri Dec 17 18:38:26 PST 2004

D.L.C.: Democrats Love Corporations?

By David J. Sirota, The Nation
 Posted on December 17, 2004, Printed on December 17, 2004
 http://www.alternet.org/story/20774/

Looking out over Washington, DC, from his plush office, Al From is once
again foaming at the mouth. The CEO of the corporate-sponsored Democratic
Leadership Council and his wealthy cronies are in their regular postelection
attack mode. Despite wins by economic populists in red states like Colorado
and Montana this year, the DLC is claiming like a broken record that
progressive policies are hurting the Democratic Party.

From's group is funded by huge contributions from multinationals like Philip
Morris, Texaco, Enron and Merck, which have all, at one point or another,
slathered the DLC with cash. Those resources have been used to push a
nakedly corporate agenda under the guise of "centrism" while allowing the
DLC to parrot GOP criticism of populist Democrats as far-left extremists.
Worse, the mainstream media follow suit, characterizing progressive
positions on everything from trade to healthcare to taxes as ultra-liberal.
As the AP recently claimed, "party liberals argue that the party must
energize its base by moving to the left" while "the DLC and other centrist
groups argue that the party must court moderates and find a way to compete
in the Midwest and South."

Is this really true? Is a corporate agenda really "centrism"? Or is it only
"centrist" among Washington's media elite, influence peddlers and
out-of-touch political class?

The American Heritage Dictionary defines "centrism" as "the political
philosophy of avoiding the extremes of right and left by taking a moderate
position." So to find out what is really "mainstream," the best place to
look is public polling data.

Let's start with economic policy. The DLC and the press claim Democrats who
attack President Bush and the Republicans for siding with the superwealthy
are waging "class warfare," which they claim will hurt Democrats at the
ballot box. Yet almost every major poll shows Americans already essentially
believe Republicans are waging a class war on behalf of the rich  they are
simply waiting for a national party to give voice to the issue. In March
2004, for example, a Washington Post poll found a whopping 67 percent of
Americans believe the Bush Administration favors large corporations over the
middle class.

The "centrists" tell Democrats not to hammer corporations for their
misbehavior and not to push for a serious crackdown on corporate excess, for
fear the party will be hurt by an "anti-business" image. Yet such a posture,
pioneered by New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, is mainstream: A
2002 Washington Post poll taken during the height of the corporate
accounting scandals found that 88 percent of Americans distrust corporate
executives, 90 percent want new corporate regulations/tougher enforcement of
existing laws and more than half think the Bush Administration is "not tough
enough" in fighting corporate crime.

On taxes, self-described "centrists" like Senator Joe Lieberman, a senior
DLC leader, attacked proposals to repeal the Bush tax cuts to pay down the
deficit. Yet even the DLC's pollster found in 2001 that a majority of
Americans support such a policy, and that a strong plurality of voters would
actually be more likely to vote for a Democrat who endorsed this proposal.
Lieberman caricatured those in favor of repeal as extreme, claiming a repeal
would alienate millions of voters who supposedly feel the tax cut helped
them. Yet a September 2004 CBS News poll found that 72 percent of Americans
say they have either not been affected by the Bush tax cuts or that their
taxes have actually gone up.

On healthcare, we are led to believe that it is a "liberal," "left" or
"socialist" position to support a single-payer system that would provide
universal coverage to all Americans. But if you believe the Washington Post,
that would mean America was some sort of hippie commune. The newspaper's
2003 national poll found that almost two-thirds of Americans say they prefer
a universal healthcare system "that's run by the government and financed by
taxpayers" as opposed to the current private, for-profit system.

Same thing with prescription drugs. DLCers like Senators John Breaux and
Evan Bayh, who both pocket thousands from the pharmaceutical industry, have
vehemently opposed bipartisan legislation allowing Americans to import
lower-priced, FDA-approved medicines from Canada. But polls consistently
show overwhelming support for the proposal. A March 2004 AP poll, for
instance, showed that two-thirds of Americans favor making it "easier for
people to buy prescription drugs from Canada or other countries at lower
cost." The measure is so popular among average Americans that even some
ardent Republicans like Senator Trent Lott have been embarrassed into
supporting it. But apparently the same can't be said for some corporate
factions of the Democratic Party.

On energy policy, those who want government to mandate higher fuel
efficiency in cars are labeled "lefties," even though a 2004 Consumers Union
poll found that 81 percent of Americans support the policy. Corporate
apologists claim this "extremist" policy would hurt Democrats in places like
Michigan, where the automobile manufacturers employ thousands. But the
Sierra Club's 2004 polling finds more than three-quarters of Michigan voters
support it  including 84 percent of the state's autoworkers.

Even in the face of massive job loss and outsourcing, the media are still
labeling corporate Democrats' support for free trade as "centrist." And the
DLC, which led the fight for NAFTA and the China trade deal, attacks those
who want to renegotiate those pacts as just a marginal group of
"protectionists." Yet a January 2004 PIPA/University of Maryland poll found
that "a majority [of the American public] is critical of US government trade
policy." A 1999 poll done on the five-year anniversary of the North American
trade deal was even more telling: Only 24 percent of Americans said they
wanted to "continue the NAFTA agreement." The public outrage at trade deals
has been so severe, pollster Steve Kull noted, that support dropped even
among upper-income Americans "who've most avidly supported trade and
globalization [and] who've taken the lead in pushing the free-trade agenda
forward."

Despite this overwhelming evidence, Washington, DC, Democrats apparently
have not gotten the message that their current definition of "centrism" is
actually pulling the party further and further out of the mainstream.
Instead, insiders are doing their best ostrich imitation: putting their
heads in the sand, pretending nothing is wrong and continuing down the same
path that sells out America's working class  the demographic that used to
be the party's base.

For instance, the DLC has issued a "heartland strategy," telling Democrats
to jettison economic populism, which has been used to elect Democrats in
various red regions in America. Their solution? "Talk more about reducing
teen pregnancy and out-of-wedlock births, which have led to an expansion of
single-parent families beset by poverty, welfare dependence, and other
social ills." Above all else, they caution, do not turn up "the volume on
anti-business and class warfare themes"  a euphemism for not discussing
DLC-backed free-trade policies that have ravaged economies throughout the
heartland. The strategy conveniently avoids the issues that might make the
DLC's corporate backers uncomfortable.

Now an effort is under way to set this faux "centrism" in stone. One of the
leading candidates for Democratic National Committee chairman is Simon
Rosenberg, a former free-trade lobbyist and head of the business-backed New
Democrat Network. His group is joined by even more organizations designed to
push the party to the right. The Washington Post reports that a group
calling itself the "Third Way" (read: "Wrong Way") is forming to tout
"centrist" policies for Democrats. Instead of leaving the Beltway and
holding a town meeting to gauge the pulse of red America's working-class
core, the group held its initial meeting "over dinner at a Georgetown
mansion." Instead of engaging in grassroots funding efforts, it is openly
relying on corporate contributions.

"The answer to the ideological extremes of the right has to be more than
rigid dogma from the left," said Senator Bayh, a leader of the new group and
one of Washington's most highly trumpeted "centrists." But really, who is
pushing a rigid dogma: these bankrolled politicians who have hijacked
"centrism" to sell out America's middle class, or the progressive populists
who most often have the backing of the American people?