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Newer New Democrats

In Chicago I read this Joe Klein column on the DLC that, by the dates, must have been submitted before The New York Times published Noam Scheiber’s op-ed on the DLC but been published a bit later. They both, however, say essentially the same thing: The organization has basically [UPDATE: the rest of this sentence originally went missing from the post for some reason] outlived its usefulness.

What’s more, several “centrist” or “New Democrat” types were around at YearlyKos and they all basically agreed with Klein and Scheiber (who are, themselves, really members of this same political tendency), which I found interesting. The proliferation of centrist groups in particular — Third Way, CNAS, Hamilton Project, etc. — plus the broader proliferation of groups doing independent policy analysis (Center for American Progress, New America, etc.) has basically created a situation where the DLC as such increasingly stands out for its leaders’ (and in particular Al From’s) idiosyncrasies rather than anything capable of mustering broader support.

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