Dems Show Centrists the Door

Moderate Rep. Jane Harman resigns from Congress and the DLC suspends operations—more signs that the Democratic Party apparently has decided to stay the course.  John Fund

By JOHN FUND

Two news items on Monday confirmed the perilous condition of moderates within the Democratic Party. Rep. Jane Harman of California, a respected moderate who was on the outs with Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, announced she was resigning from Congress to head the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars. And then the Democratic Leadership Council, which dominated the party during the Clinton years, said it was on the verge of bankruptcy and would be suspending operations.

“Progressives are winning the battle for the party,” Progressive Congress president Darcy Burner told Politico.com. “The corporate-focused DLC type of politics isn’t working inside the Democratic party.”

The DLC’s decline is one more illustration that the core of the Democratic Party apparently has decided that no course correction is needed after what President Obama called its “shellacking” in the midterm elections. The DLC helped elect and re-elect Bill Clinton, one of its first chairmen, in the 1990s by promoting support for balanced budgets, free trade, welfare reform and tough law enforcement. But the organization fell on hard times after it was seen as insufficiently confrontational with President George W. Bush. And its support of the 2003 Iraq war angered a growing militant strain among left-wing Democrats.

I vividly recall Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman visiting The Wall Street Journal in 2005 and lamenting the shrinking ranks of the party’s moderates. “There are just so many on the other side,” he said. “They just keep coming over that hill.” Mr. Lieberman lost his 2006 Democratic primary to an anti-war challenger and had to win election that fall as an independent. Last month he announced his retirement from politics.

It’s certainly true that President Obama has moved to the center rhetorically and hired moderate Bill Daley as his new chief of staff. But few progressives in the Democratic Party believe that it represents a rethinking of Mr. Obama’s basic liberal attitudes. Instead, they view it more as a tactical shift for temporary advantage in the 2012 elections. The party remains firmly in the grip of its most liberal elements, and that means Republicans can count on only so much cooperation or compromise as they pursue their own agenda.