It looks like the Democratic Leadership Council is getting a bit huffy and puffy about the fact that the Democratic presidential candidates, a number of whom were at one time affiliated with the organization, have refused an invitation to speak at the annual DLC summer meeting this year. How huffy and puffy, you ask? So much so that they have turned to Ron Fournier, one time star of the miserable failure that was Hot Soup (it's no longer online, but it was to have been a social networking site run by a bunch of Beltway consultants -- I know, hard to imagine that it failed...), to whine publicly that the Democrats no longer care about moderate voters.

Bill Clinton will be there. So will 300 officeholders from more than 45 states. But one thing will be missing when Democrats gather in Tennessee this weekend to discuss how to appeal to moderate, independent-minded voters in 2008: the Democratic presidential field.

Not a single one of the eight presidential candidates plans to attend the Democratic Leadership Council's summer meeting, a snub that says less about the centrist DLC than it does about a nomination process that rewards candidates who pander to their parties' hardened cores while ignoring everybody else.

"They have tunnel vision," DLC founder Al From said of his fellow Democrats.

Al From has the best interests of the Democratic Party in mind... right. Perhaps that's why he decided long ago -- before any of the current Democratic candidates for the presidency formally formed their campaigns, before even the 2006 midterm elections -- to advise a then-Republican politician on how to mount a centrist presidential campaign. Perhaps you might note that polling indicates that a Bloomberg candidacy would do more to help than hurt the Democratic nominee. That does not take away from the fact that From has, however unofficially, however fleetingly, advised a non-Democratic Party candidate on how to defeat a Democratic presidential candidate indicates to me, at the least, that he does not have the best interests of the Democratic Party in mind.

But getting to the larger implication of the piece -- that the Democratic presidential candidates don't care about moderate voters, or as Fournier puts it, that the candidates' decision not to attend the DLC event "says less about the centrist DLC than it does about a nomination process that rewards candidates who pander to their parties' hardened cores while ignoring everybody else" -- rubbish, I say.

First of all, there is no way that the Democrats don't care about moderate voters or that moderate voters don't like the message being put out by the Democratic Party. No one would argue that moderates are not an important part of the Democratic coalition. In 2004, even as John Kerry lost to George W. Bush nationally, he carried the vote of moderates by a 54 percent to 45 percent margin. In 2006, the Democrats secured even stronger support from moderate voters (60 percent to 38 percent) in their successful midterm election victory.

And not only are moderate voters important to the Democratic Party's general election success, they are also important to the success of candidates seeking the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. Take Iowa, for example. In 2004, exit polling showed that 37 percent of Iowa Democratic caucus-goers self-identified as moderate (with another 6 percent self-identifying as conservative). Or take New Hampshire. Exit polling from the 2000 New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary showed that 38 percent of those who voted self-identified as moderate (plus 8 percent self-identifying as conservative). In 2004, exit polling pegged that number to be even higher (45 percent, with 10 percent either identifying as very or somewhat conservative). With upwards of two thirds of New Hampshire independents projected to vote in the Democratic primary this year, it's fairly safe to say that there are going to be a lot of moderate voters helping decide who the next Democratic nominee is. So clearly, moderate voters are important to the Democratic Party and to candidates for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.

This brings me back to my first point, and to the broader point of this post. The Democratic candidates' decision to snub the DLC is not about snubbing moderate voters, despite what Ron Fournier or Al From or anyone else says. Rather, it's about snubbing the DLC, an organization whose founder is at the least flirting with the possibility of supporting a presidential candidacy that would oppose the Democratic Party; an organization that has had some questionable policy recommendations for the Democratic Party in recent years; an organization that may or may not actually have the best intentions of the Democratic Party in its mind and an organization that, despite its protestations, should not necessarily be viewed as the voice of all moderate voters, or even the moderate voters within the Democratic Party.

There's more...