In July of last year, New Republic editor Noam Scheiber penned a New York Times op-ed column celebrating the demise of the anti-liberal Democratic Leadership Council as a factor in Democratic politics. Even at the time, reports of their death were greatly exaggerated. As the presidential campaign has unfolded with scenes of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton attacking each other and John Edwards from the right, the obituary is shown to be entirely premature.

Scheiber’s primary evidence for the group’s declining influence consisted of the departure of charter member Bill Clinton from the White House, the decision by Democratic candidates to skip the annual DLC convention, and polls showing a dramatic decline in the percentage of Democrats hewing to the organization’s precepts. It apparently didn’t occur to Scheiber that those polls were what drove the candidates away from the DLC gathering rather than any fundamental quarrel with the group’s ethos, or that the DLC had every reason to think its pipeline to the White House would be reopened by the next President Clinton, should one arrive.

Of the three Democrats who have a shot at winning their party’s nomination, only John Edwards could be considered a renegade from DLC principles, primarily on economic issues. Clinton qualifies as a hawk on defense, with Obama only slightly less so. Both Clinton and Obama enjoy enormous support from the financial and business communities which the DLC was created to woo. The Clintons and Obama endorsed DLC pillar Joe Lieberman over Ned Lamont in the 2006 primary, and refused to campaign for Lamont in the general election.

No matter how sourly rank-and-file Democrats regard the DLC, it was and is perfectly clear that Obama and Clinton don’t share that disregard in any serious way. And now the DLC has made equally clear that the admiration cuts both ways: they’ll be happy with either Obama or Clinton as the party nominee. But not John Edwards.

The Times piece was somewhat by way of a mea culpa from Scheiber, whose magazine has routinely supported the DLC; it’s only fitting that on the issue of the group’s demise, he was as misguided as when he supported them.

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