No Presidential Candidates to DLC Meeting? Is This True, Harold?
by Jackson Baker
Holding forth on the July 22nd installment of Fox News Sunday, right-wing journalist Bill Kristol denounced the current fashionability among Democrats of the liberal Web site DailyKos.com and noted by contrast, "Not a single Democratic presidential candidate is going to the Democratic Leadership Council meeting in a couple of weeks. That's the organization that Bill Clinton was head of in the early '90s. That was supposed to be the 'new, more moderate' Democratic Party. The Democratic Party has gone left, and it's going to hurt them presidentially in 2008."
No contenders? Uh oh. Is this a problem for the DLC's head, former congressman Harold Ford Jr., who was elected to lead the organization earlier this year to give it more relevance and political panache?
This is how the event referred to by Kristol, "the DLC National Conversation," scheduled for next Saturday, July 28th, is billed on the organization's own Web site: "This summer in Nashville, hundreds of rising political stars from every corner of America will gather at the DLC's most important annual event -- and the next stop on DLC Chair Harold Ford's Ideas Primary tour -- to hear from leading national voices and to discuss the ideas that will shape the country's future."
And, to be sure, no active candidates for the presidency are listed at this point as among the "leading national voices" scheduled to attend so as to help "shape the country's future." Well, there's still time to sign up. We'll find out what happens on Saturday.
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