Hi Everyone,
Tom Vilsack, the governor of my new home state (where I have a job in small college town) has taken over as the head of the Democratic Leadership Council. This is not the same thing as the leadership of the entire party - that's Howard Dean's job. The DLC is the organization of "New Democrats." These people are right on the median position of Americans. This is where Clinton came from. There is a link to this group in the section "Sell Outs" to the right. There are a number of liberal Democrats, like John Kerry and Hillary Clinton, who try to hang out with the DLC to appear more centrist but it is fairly easy to tell who the true believers are. These are pro-trade (pro NAFTA/CAFTA/WTO) Democrats who advocate the politics of the "Third Way." They look to achieve progressive goals with market based methods. They tend to be socially progressive and fiscally responsible (pro-balanced budgets).
For Vilsack, this new job means a national profile for a small state governor. It is in effect a declaration of his intention to run for President in 2008. So we should all start looking at this guy more closely.
Friday, July 15, 2005
Tom Vilsack To Head DLC
Posted by Raised By Republicans at 5:09 AM
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3 comments:
As many of you here know, I've been pumping Vilack for a while. Putting him in charge of the DLC is meant, incidentally, to also put him at odds with (to the right/center of) Dean at the DNC. You can learn more about him here . Iowa has recently put an expanded medicaid program in place (most states are cutting) for anyone within 200% of the poverty line. The press release says "$1,600/month for a "family of two", i.e, this is all about single parents, and I really like not using the conservative "family of four" as the benchmark stat, given the realities of modern families.
He's a moderate catholic democrat who presided over many successes in Iowa.
Vilsack (Iowa)- Warner (VA) anyone?
// posted by LTG
I hear that Iowa has also been maintaining balanced budgets even as the Bush administration's unfunded mandates have forced many states into deficits. So Vilsack can run against a GOP Congressman/Senator claiming superior fiscal responsibility! That would lock up a lot of swing votes in the Midwest battle ground states like Ohio - and Iowa.
// posted by Raised By Republicans
I just quoted and linked to your post here.
// posted by Deborah White
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