Al From, DLC founder, says "drawn-out, negative campaign could actually prove useful"

madfloridian

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Wed Mar-05-08 12:53 PM
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Al From, DLC founder, says "drawn-out, negative campaign could actually prove useful"

I agree with him that dirty politics work. They always have worked. People often don't bother to be informed, and they fall for fear tactics and smears that are not true.

But I disagree it is going to prove useful this time. People are just too angry to handle it. After eight years of the Bush administration, there is very little tolerance for hate tactics and ugliness.

Here is what the illustrious Al From said recently.

And he said a drawn-out, negative campaign could actually prove useful.

"I'd much rather have a Democratic candidate who's had to figure out how to handle some fairly tough shots in the primary than one who gets knocked to the floor by the Republicans and doesn't quite know how to respond," From said.

That is not the issue of what is going on now. It is disingenuous of him to present it that way. Hillary's "celestial choirs" and "skies opening" were not about being tough. They were about being just plain nasty.

Her statement that McCain is superior to Obama were not attacks, they were supportive of the Republican candidate.

Here is more from the article:

Going negative proved positive in Clinton's comeback

In winning New Hampshire a few weeks ago, Hillary Rodham Clinton declared, "I found my own voice." But it was a much different voice in the closing days before Tuesday's voting that carried her to victory in Ohio and Texas -- and which now lets her make a strong case for extending the Democratic presidential race into the spring and possibly beyond.

Gone was the misty-eyed Clinton who scored points showing her human side. Gone was the gracious Clinton who, just two weeks ago, drew thunderous applause for expressing her pride in running against Barack Obama.

The new voice was angrier, sharper and far more negative toward Obama -- a voice that at one point bellowed at her rival, "Shame on you," as she pushed back against what she said was an unfair attack.

There appears to be little hope now that any one voice in the party can stop her and the negative campaigning. The media is also again jumping on the bandwagon for Florida delegates. Her husband is the former president who has already used the race card against Obama. If they decide to run a scorched earth campaign, I doubt anyone can stop them.

Before Clinton's victories on Tuesday, some Democrats had hoped that an ad hoc "Supreme Court" of party elders such as former Vice President Al Gore, former President Carter, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi or even onetime rivals such as Richardson or former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina might step in to persuade Clinton to step aside for the sake of party unity.

But Al From, who as founder of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council has a long association with Clinton and her husband, the former president, said Tuesday that such a scenario was unlikely.

Al held a press conference in 2003 to declare that Howard Dean would not be the one to be president. Guess what. Al was right. He called Dean's supporters fringe.

Here is a quote from that 2003 press conference. They did not use the word cult about Dean and his supporters....they used the word "elitist". Fringe, elitist, now cult.

That is how the insiders keep the outsiders out. Language.

The DLC announced that we could beat Bush, but that Dean would not be the one to do it.

The 'D' in DLC Doesn't Stand for Dean (David Von Drehle, May 15, 2003, Washington Post)

More than 50 centrist Democrats, including Virginia Gov. Mark R. Warner, met here yesterday to plot strategy for the "New Democrat" movement. To help get the ball rolling they read a memo by Al From and Bruce Reed, the chairman and president of the Democratic Leadership Council. The memo dismissed Dean as an elitist liberal from the "McGovern-Mondale wing" of the party -- "the wing that lost 49 states in two elections, and transformed Democrats from a strong national party into a much weaker regional one."

"It is a shame that the DLC is trying to divide the party along these lines," said Dean spokesman Joe Trippi. "Governor Dean's record as a centrist on health care and balancing the budget speaks for itself."

As founder of the DLC, From has been pushing the Democratic Party to the right for nearly 20 years. He was in tall cotton, philosophically speaking, when an early leader of the DLC, Bill Clinton, was elected president in 1992. As Clinton's domestic policy guru, Reed pushed New Democrat ideas -- such as welfare reform -- that were often unpopular with party liberals.

"We are increasingly confident that President Bush can be beaten next year, but Dean is not the man to do it," Reed and From wrote. "Most Democrats aren't elitists who think they know better than everyone else."

Yes, attacks work. Calling people names works. Invoking "celestial choirs" with dripping sarcarm works. It all works.

It assures though that we do not get the best people elected to serve us. It is distressful to see Al From agreeing with negative attacks, and equally distasteful to see them being used by the former first couple.