You know, I've always been somewhat of defender of the DLC against those who think it's Satan incarnate. I'm all for a bit of money-raising pragmatism. But, their attempt to frag the Dean campaign was both poor in form and poor in substance. They've pulled a full rectal-cranial inversion and tried to tar Dean's grass roots support as support by "activist elites" as opposed to "normal people." And, most of all, they've tried to paint Dean is a some crazed lefty. The fact is, there's only one candidate that's clearly to the right of Dean on the issues and that's Lieberman, though a case could be made for Graham I suppose.
Clinton was an economic centrist but social liberal who know how to reach out to most of fractured coalition that is the Democratic party. The biggest problem we face in the '04 election isn't Great Leader's mighty air craft carrier codpiece, or whatever that year's "soccer moms" will be called - it's voter apathy. When the chips are down - and they're increasingly down - people want to be inspired.
I'm an anyone but Bush guy at this point. I don't know if Dean is either my favorite candidate or the one I think has the best chance of winning the general election. It's too early to make such a determination. Al From is right that Clinton didn't win by running to the Left, but he didn't win by running meekly either. The people I've met at the Dean Meetup and Fundraiser that I went to weren't "activist elites." The most commonly used expression at those events was something along the lines of "I've never really done something like this before..."
The key is to make politics interesting and inspirational - to draw people into it and to make it a participatory. I'm not sure if Dean can do that - but it seems to be what he's trying to do.
Oh, and you can contact the DLC here.
