http://www.blackcommentator.com/48/48_cover.htmlBarack Obama will not be carrying the Democratic Leadership Council’s baggage in his race to become the second Black person to represent Illinois in the U.S. Senate. The state senator and professor of constitutional law has told The Black Commentator that he is acting to have his name stricken from the “New Democrats Directory,” a list of several hundred DLC-affiliated elected officials.
“I am not currently, nor have I ever been, a member of the DLC,” said Obama, in a statement that substantially reflects a telephone conversation with Associate Editor Bruce Dixon, this weekend. “It does appear that, without my knowledge, the DLC…listed me in their ‘New Democrat’ directory,” Obama continued. “Because I agree that such a directory implies membership, I will be calling the DLC to have my name removed, and appreciate your having brought this fact to my attention.”
The statement caps a three-week public dialogue (see links at bottom of page) between and Obama, a veteran progressive organizer who headed the voter registration and mobilization drive that carried Carol Moseley-Braun to the U.S. Senate in 1992 – the first and only such achievement by a Black woman. Obama faces a crowded and richly financed field of contestants for the Democratic senatorial nomination, next year. African Americans make up about a quarter of the Illinois Democratic electorate.
was shocked to find Obama’s name associated with the New Democratic Movement, an affiliate of what Bruce Dixon calls the “Republican Trojan Horse in the bowels of the Democratic machinery” – the DLC. In a June 19 Cover Story that included a letter from Obama, posed three “bright line” questions to the candidate, “that should determine whether you belong in the DLC, or not.”
1. Do you favor the withdrawal of the United States from NAFTA? Will you in the Senate introduce or sponsor legislation toward that end?
2. Do you favor the adoption of a single payer system of universal health care to extend the availability of quality health care to all persons in this country? Will you in the Senate introduce or sponsor legislation toward that end?
3. Would you have voted against the October 10 congressional resolution allowing the president to use unilateral force against Iraq?
asserted that a “Yes” answer to all three questions would be “anathema” to the DLC, whose leadership “has been unequivocal in their support of NAFTA, opposition to anything resembling national health insurance, and fervently in support of the Iraq war – basic issues of war and peace, life and death, and livelihood.”
Aware of Obama’s consistently progressive legislative record, suggested that the only “honorable option” was that he “publicly withdraw from the DLC.”
Here is State Senator Barack Obama’s response:
Dear Black Commentator:
Let me begin by saying that I’ve enjoyed the dialogue that we seem to be developing on these e-pages, and hope it continues as my campaign progresses.
I also appreciate your desire to focus on specific issues that should be of interest to all progressives, both inside and outside of the Democratic Party. My views on universal health care, the unilateral use of force in Iraq, and NAFTA are in fact what you might expect given my previous history and voting record.
I favor universal health care for all Americans, and intend to introduce or sponsor legislation toward that end in the U.S. Senate, just as I have at the state level. My campaign is also developing a series of interim proposals – such as an expansion of the successful SCHIP program – so that we can immediately provide more coverage to uninsured children and their families.
I would have voted against the October 10th congressional resolution authorizing the President to use unilateral force against Iraq. I believe that we could have effectively neutralized Iraq with a rigorous, multilateral inspection regime backed by coalition forces. Nothing since the end of the formal fighting has led me to reconsider this stance; indeed, the inability of Saddam Hussein to mount even token resistance to American forces, the failure to discover any significant, deployable arsenals of biological or chemical weapons inside Iraq, and the on-going turmoil currently taking place in post-war Iraq, have only strengthened my views on the subject.
And although I believe that free trade - when also fair - can benefit workers in both rich and poor nations, I think that the current NAFTA regime lacks the worker and environmental protections that are necessary for the long-term prosperity of both America and its trading partners. I would therefore favor, at minimum, a significant renegotiation of NAFTA and the terms of the President’s fast track authority.
You are undoubtedly correct that these positions make me an unlikely candidate for membership in the DLC.
That is why I am not currently, nor have I ever been, a member of the DLC. As I stated in my previous letter, I agreed to be listed as “100 to watch” by the DLC. That’s been the extent of my contact with them. It does appear that, without my knowledge, the DLC also listed me in their “New Democrat” directory. Because I agree that such a directory implies membership, I will be calling the DLC to have my name removed, and appreciate your having brought this fact
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