The decline and fall of the Democratic Party
I’ve been saying for a long while that the Democratic Party is on the verge of a major split on ideological lines. The evidence of that was quite visible during the 2004 Presidential primaries. Howard Dean, the extreme leftist, was surging amongst the leftist Democratic base. The only reason that the Democrats won in 1992 and 1996 is because Bill Clinton and the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) dragged the party kicking and screaming to the center.
My original prediction was that the split of leftists and centrists would occur before the 2003 election. I was wrong, but only on the timing, I believe.
Terry McAuliffe (Clinton’s hand-picked leader for the Democratic National Committee, or DNC) has indicated he will not seek re-election to the chairman post of that organization. Several prominent centrists from the Clinton era have stated that they do not intend to seek the position. Prominent DLC centrists like Gov. Tom Vilsack of Ohio are also said to be uninterested. But who IS interested? Howard Dean.
The DLC is an organization that was created by FOB (that’s Friends of Bill for those of you in Rio Linda) to advance a more fiscally conservative strain of Democrat. The DLC was reviled by the Moonbats of the Democratic party, because they weren’t extreme enough. They were considered “Republican-lite”. But the DLC is the reason the Bill Clinton won in 1996. The Moonbats and their insistence on a hard-line leftist (Howard Dean) cost the Democrats the election in 2004.
I’m calling this one early - by 2008 there will be a DNC-headed leftist party and a DLC-headed centrist party. That DLC party will probably draw the more liberal among the Republicans (Snowe, Chaffee, etc.) into their party, creating an interesting political climate.