Hillary and Joe Lieberman

Traditionally only two political parties have dominated the competition for power in the United States . What most Americans don’t realize is that since 1985 a third political party has been vying for power and has actually won the Presidency of the United States. The American corporate media ignores this third party pretending that is is nothing more than a wing of one of the other parties. On the far right the Republican National Committee (RNC) dominates. In the center, because there are no viable left-wing social democratic political parties in the United States, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) rules the roost. In between, employing the strategy of “Triangulation” the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) has staked out its piece of the political landscape.

The present Chairman of the DLC is Harold Ford. Mr. Ford last year lost his bid to represent Tennessee in the United States Senate. Past DLC chairs reads like a whose-who of conservative democrats: Sam Nunn, Bill Clinton, John Breaux, Joseph Lieberman, Evan Bayh, and Tom Vilsack. Prominent national DLC members today include Max Baucus, Hillary Clinton, Kent Conrad, Byron Dorgan, Terry McAuliffe, John Edwards, Rahm Emanuel, Al Gore, and John Kerry. California DLC members are Juanita Millender-McDonald, Loretta Sanchez, Adam Schiff, Susan Davis, Cal Dooley, Ellen Tauscher, Gavin Newsom, Jane Harmon, Lois Copps, and Dianne Feinstein.

Paul Wellstone, criticizing the DLC said,"I'm from the democratic wing of the Democrat Party." According to Howard Dean, the present chair of the DNC, DLC operatives actively worked to sabotage his candidacy for the US Presidency in 2004. Senator Barack Obama opposes the DLC. In 2003, he discussed why his positions against NAFTA, the War in Iraq, and in support of universal healthcare were at odds with the DLC, saying 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."

It was reported in the New York press last summer that Hillary Clinton quietly funneled money into fellow DLC’er Joe Lieberman’s successful campaign to become an Independent Democratic representing Connecticut in the U.S. Senate.
If Barack Obama becomes the DNC’s Presidential nominee, will he chose another DNC’er for Vice President or will he pick a DLC type? The answer to that question will tell us how unified the Democrats really are.

June 2008

P.S. Obama picked the DNC Joe Biden for his Vice President. After winning the election in November 2008, Obama stacked his cabinet and under secretariats with DLCer.