Democrats' Conference Exposes Split
By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 6, 2003; Page A06
The Democratic presidential candidates brought their best attack lines against President Bush to an audience of progressives here yesterday. But it was an attack on the party's centrists that brought one of the biggest ovations and exposed the fissures Democrats will have to overcome before they can think about winning in 2004.
The three-day conference sponsored by the Campaign for America's Future has revealed a resurgent liberal wing of the Democratic Party, energized by what its members see as Bush's close ties to corporate America and, for many, by his decision to launch the war against Iraq.
Nearly every element of the party's grass-roots base -- labor, environmentalists, feminists, gays -- was represented at an event that organizers said quickly became oversubscribed, and it has become clear that while there is considerable animosity toward Bush, the progressives roaming the corridors of the Omni Shoreham Hotel hold the centrist Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) in low regard as well.
Former Vermont governor Howard Dean, whom the DLC has attacked for opposing the war in Iraq, used part of his appearance to keep the intraparty battle alive. "As long as we're willing to say whatever it takes to get elected, we're going to be in the minority party for a long time," he said. "You know what, those folks at the DLC are wrong. The way to get elected . . . is not to be like the Republicans, but to stand up against them and fight."
Bruce Reed, the DLC president, said the animosity reflects the stakes for the competing wings of the party as they begin to choose a nominee to challenge Bush in 2004. "Primary battles are a defining moment for a party and we care very deeply about that and so do they," Reed said. "This is really the first definitional moment the party's had since 1992."
The sniping began with the opening of the conference Wednesday when a liberal group placed an ad in the New York Times attacking the DLC and its founder and CEO, Al From, and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), the presidential candidate closest to the organization. The ad attacked the DLC as a tool of Fortune 500 companies, hostile to unions and too pro-defense.
The DLC responded with a memo challenging the progressives and warning against allowing opponents of the war in Iraq to set the direction of the party, which Robert Borosage, one of the main organizers of the Take Back America conference, called a doomed strategy. "They want to read the peace movement out of the party," he said. "That's goofy politics. . . . The base of the Democratic Party is here."
Six candidates for the nomination appeared either live or by video -- Dean, Sens. John Edwards (N.C.) and John F. Kerry (Mass.), former senator Carol Moseley Braun (Ill.), Reps. Dennis Kucinich (Ohio) and Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.). Lieberman was among the no-shows. A spokesman said the Connecticut senator had a conflict and was not snubbing the progressives. Sen. Bob Graham (Fla.) also did not attend; Al Sharpton plans an appearance today.
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