Those "Conservadems" are angering me with their arrogance. .

madfloridian

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Wed Mar-25-09 08:55 PM
Original message

Those "Conservadems" are angering me with their arrogance. .

They are mostly leaders of the DLC/PPI/Third Way trio that has hijacked the party agenda.

They detest those of us they think are on the "left". Those of us we call "liberal".

They have formed this group with the "blessing" of Rahm and Harry Reid.

Their goal is NOT to get Obama's policies passed, but instead to keep the Republicans in power. Rachel as much as said that to Jeanne Shaheen tonight on her show.

They will not help Obama, they will enable the 41 dead in the water Republicans to come to life again.

Rahm once made it clear that they did not want to let the "liberal" wing get too much power.

The complexion of the Democratic presence in Congress will change as well. Party politics will be shaped by the resurgence of "Blue Dog" Democrats, who come mainly from the South and from rural districts in the Midwest and often vote like Republicans. Top Democrats such as Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) see these middle-of-the-road lawmakers as the future of the party in a nation that leans slightly right of center.

In private talks before the election, Emanuel and other top Democrats told their members they cannot allow the party's liberal wing to dominate the agenda next year. Democrats will hold 30 or 35 seats that went for Bush in the past, meaning that Democratic candidates such as Brad Ellsworth in rural Indiana are likely to face competitive races again in 2008. Still, their interests are likely to collide with those of veteran liberals such as Reps. Henry A. Waxman (Calif.) and John Conyers Jr., (Mich.), who will chair committees."

Those of us who want traditional Democratic values to pass in Congress are doomed to work outside the party to get anything done.

Obama does not need to meet with the 70 plus member Progressive Caucus because they don't matter. Only the ones who can and will enable the Republicans matter now. He met with the new Senate Blue Dogs this week.

I watched Evan Bayh on TV briefly today. He is arrogant, and he has his own agenda...that of the trio of the DLC/PPI/Third Way. He and the others are snobbish in the way they think of the rest of us. I see it in their manners during interviews. They hold themselves above us all.

Evan Bayh is not concerned about a Democratic agenda.

From TPM:

It may not surprise many political junkies, but Sen. Evan Bayh (IN) is the Democrat who has crossed party lines most often on the spending bill, voting with the GOP eight times since debate on the legislation began last week. (Sen. Olympia Snowe mirrors him on the Republican side, voting alongside Democrats eight times during the process.)

Bayh least liberal of senators.

Bayh has as much as threatened the party that nothing will move unless they approve.

Bayh organizes moderates...says nothing passes without them

Mr. Bayh, Mr. Carper and Ms. Lambert are all honorary leaders of Third Way, a progressive Democratic policy group. Mr. Bayh and Mr. Carper have also lead the centrist Democratic Leadership Council.

The new coalition includes six Democratic freshmen, Mark Begich of Alaska, Michael Bennet of Colorado, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Mark Udall of Colorado, and Mark Warner of Virginia. Other members of the group are Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Bill Nelson of Florida. Joseph I. Lieberman, the Connecticut independent, is also part of the group.

..."But Mr. Bayh in the MSNBC interview, warned that Mr. Reid would need the new group�s help to get major legislation through the Senate. �As you know, on most things, you�ve got to get the 60 votes in the Senate,� he said. �And that�s going to be hard. And it�s going to take the centrists to get us there. And so we want to help make the changes we need. And that�s � that�s what our group is all about.

He added: �We�re not ideologues, we�re pragmatists. We�re not strident partisans. We care about our country more than our party, and so we want to get things done.�

Amy Klobuchar is one also I think.

They intend to do as the DLC types have done for years. They are going to set policy for the party, even if they have to force it on them. And they will force it.

We, the ones they call liberals, the fringe, the left....will have to work outside the party to accomplish anything. They have effectively hijacked the agenda for the corporate masters.

Florida was one of the first states to come completely under the power of the DLC types. I will never forget these words from the arrogant SOB who was one of the Democratic leaders in the Florida party for a while.

"and if they don't want to swallow DLC, we'll stick it to 'em."

Making his way through the Florida delegation, for example, he's greeted by the state party chair, the head of the state DLC, and a gruff lawyer from Lakeland named Bob Grizzard. Defiantly wearing a t-shirt from Clinton's 1992 campaign over his checkered oxford shirt, Grizzard tells me he's a "proud member of the DLC." When I ask him about the prominence of liberal speakers on the convention docket, he says, "We're the party of diversity and inclusion," then pauses before adding, "and if they don't want to swallow DLC, we'll stick it to 'em." A minute later, he grabs the shoulders of an African American delegate and pulls him over. "He's not quite with us yet," Grizzard confides to me jokingly, "but we'll give him time." Grizzard's friends are a little embarrassed by the gesture but share his triumphalism nonetheless. "The DLC is the wind in our sails," says Bob Poe, the state party chair.

Simon Rosenberg at the same convention bragged at how quickly they had taken over the party agenda.

The New Democrats, Rosenberg explains to me in the convention center cafeteria, have consciously emulated the conservative movement's gradual takeover of the GOP. He pulls out a sheet of paper from his black canvas bag and draws a timeline of modern conservatism's rise: "National Review to Goldwater to the Heritage Foundation to Reagan. It took thirty years for them to take over the party." He then draws a parallel line for the New Democrats, starting with the founding of the DLC in 1985 and running through Lieberman's addition to the Democratic ticket this month. "This all happened very quickly, much more quickly than on the right," he says, staring down at his diagram. "When I worked at the DLC, I studied the institutional infrastructure of the right, especially gopac. You need to fund candidates who support your ideas. We learned lessons from the right, and we borrowed from them."

This bunch of new Conservadems cares nothing at all about what we want or think or believe. We the voting members of the party mean little to them.

I guess since they have gotten away with it since 1985, they figure they just keep right on with their hijacking.

This move of theirs to gather together these centrist Democrats to actually enable the Republicans could doom any real change unless it is change THEY want.

Yes, I am angry. We worked very hard to get our new president in only to see 16 arrogant men and women take over to marginalize his agenda.