It says, "politically costly decisions like the continuation of TARP and the automobile industry rescue took a toll," reminding workers: you don't ever wishing this kind of auto industry rescue to happen again.
"(T)he administration will instead embark on an aggressive, export-oriented trade negotiating program (like that Ed Gresser suggested late in 2009) in a time when -- as stimulus phases out and families continue save -- the country needs exports more than ever for growth." It wants continuing export not so much of commodity as of jobs via trade agreements. How in the world one can export enmasse service products that is the US' main competitive advantage?
Its education program says, "government as a provider of public goods and a facilitator of innovation, worker skills, and competitiveness. " How about workers' higher education facilitator and their wage stagnation caused education-poverty? Community college education alone does not enable ordinary workers to find high-wage or highly skilled jobs.
Although the DLC is the rightist clique in DP, since the winds blow toward the right in the landscape of politics, DP would have no other choice than following its right-wing holding sway.
Workers have also no choice except breaking up as a political epigone with DP. If not, their livelihoods will only be more miserable than now.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com> To: "lbo-talk" <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 2010 1:39 PM Subject: [lbo-talk] the DLC's analysis
> THE MORNING AFTER
>
> After a brief two years in power, few Democrats feel we deserved
> quite the beating we got last night. On the morning after, our
> temptation will be to write it off as the inevitable result of a
> terrible political landscape. But we urge a different response.
> The public has given our party a rebuke; and we believe Democrats
> need to accept the verdict and make some changes.
>
> Before turning to these changes, a few bright spots:
> In particular, we are very pleased to congratulate Senator-elect
> Chris Coons on his victory in one of the nation's marquee Senate
> races. Chris is a long-time friend, and a participant in the
> Fellows Program that is the pride of our state and local
> government program. His success is a reminder that -- now more
> than ever -- we need to focus on recruiting and supporting the
> next generation of Democratic leaders. We're happy to see many
> New Democrat House members, Senators and state candidates --
> Gabby Giffords in Arizona, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz in Florida,
> Ron Kind in Wisconsin, Dan Malloy in Connecticut, Gavin Newsom
> in California -- prevailing in sometimes close races. And we note
> for the record that President Obama and the 111th Congress came
> to Washington to do big things, and achieved many of them: an
> historic reform of health policy, new policies for student loans
> and K-12 education, an improved trade adjustment assistance
> program and broadened support for scientific research, all while
> managing an inherited crisis and two wars. These are major
> achievements, and Democrats should be proud of them.
>
> But all in all this was a night in which the public judged
> Democrats harshly -- taken as a whole, certainly the worst defeat
> since 1994 and perhaps since 1980 -- with net losses of at least
> 60 House seats, 6 Senate seats, and 9 Governors' mansions. True
> enough, our party faced a bad landscape: high unemployment and
> necessary but politically costly decisions like the continuation
> of TARP and the automobile industry rescue took a toll, and all
> the more so against the backdrop of a midterm election with its
> typical swing against a new president and many marginal House
> seats. But Democrats knew the landscape was bad, prepared well
> with early campaigning and strong fundraising -- and in the
> Senate might have fared still worse, had Republican primary
> voters nominated better candidates.
>
> Fundamentally, Democrats lost the middle. In 2006, moderates
> decided the election, voting for Democrats by 22 million to
> 14 million. This year's Democratic moderate vote probably fell by
> about 6 million. Doubtless many changed votes or shifted to the
> conservative camp simply for the sake of change in a bad economy
> -- but many also looked at our agenda and began to worry.
>
> Why? Moderates are aspirational and pragmatic, seeing an important
> but limited role for government in economic life. For them, the
> party's apparent lack of interest in a long-term path away from
> emergency stimulus toward fiscal balance revived a pre-Clinton
> reputation for carefree attitudes toward public money. And without
> a clear route back to growth led by the private sector, moderates
> wondered whether Democrats were beginning to see government as
> replacing entrepreneurs and inventors as the driver of growth.
> Worried that Democrats might be pushing beyond their limits,
> they looked to the other team.
>
> To rebound we need to recover their confidence, with a reshaped
> set of policies that recognizes and responds to their
> disenchantment. Here are a few suggestions, drawn from the DLC's
> research and policy development over the past year:
>
> - Economic Growth: Moderates see the private sector as the main
> source of growth, and don't see the government as a credible
> long-term replacement. In a period of crisis, they want
> businesses and government to collaborate to find new sources
> of growth -- encouraging broadband internet deployment to
> homes, easing business creation and finding effective
> incentives to hire, promoting exports -- rather than blame
> and accuse one another for creating or prolonging the crisis.
> And while they want businesses and rich families to contribute
> their share to the greater good, they are also more alarmed
> than inspired by populist attacks on business and wealth. We
> are particularly hopeful Democrats will drop the gloomy
> trade-bashing ads of this past campaign, and the administration
> will instead embark on an aggressive, export-oriented trade
> negotiating program (like that Ed Gresser suggested late in
> 2009) in a time when -- as stimulus phases out and families
> continue save -- the country needs exports more than ever
> for growth.
>
> - Innovation and Education Reform: Moderates see a role for
> government as a provider of public goods and a facilitator
> of innovation, worker skills, and competitiveness. Part of
> this is a continued robust commitment to scientific research
> and top-quality infrastructure; part of it is improving science
> and math education, and attracting more technically skilled
> immigrants; part is a commitment to give workers the skills
> they need as computers and robots replace human workers at
> construction sites and in factories. Here Paul Weinstein and
> Jessica Milano point to greater federal support for community
> colleges as a way to help more unskilled, low-wage workers
> qualify for high-wage jobs in rapidly growing fields like
> health care and information technology.
>
> - Fiscal Discipline: Moderates worry about the country's
> financial health. Especially with baby boom retirements
> threatening to swamp government finances by mid-decade, they
> need a credible route back out of emergency deficits and
> toward fiscal balance -- and Democrats need to win back
> public trust on this issue. The White House's Fiscal
> Responsibility and Debt Reduction Commission, with the DLC's
> Bruce Reed as Executive Director, will offer a set of options
> this December on controlling spending, entitlement policy,
> growth measures and tax reform -- and Democrats should be
> its advocates. We are also working with state and local
> officials on reinventing government, drawing lessons from
> private-sector expertise in cost-savings through logistics
> and information technology, to reduce the cost of public
> services and to rebuild confidence that Democrats are careful
> managers of public money.
>
> A final lesson: Rebuilding is not impossible. Democrats bounced
> back after the Republican landslides in the 1980s that led to
> creation of the DLC, then after the 1994 defeat as the Clinton
> administration embraced and enacted a bold New Democrat agenda,
> and in 2006 when Democrats put forward a plan of ideas that spoke
> to the needs and frustrations of swing voters across the country.
> Our challenge now is not essentially more difficult than it was
> then, and we look forward to the debate and the fresh start.
>
> ----
> To view an HTML version of this email, with links, please visit:
> http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=0&subid=900183&contentid=254649
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