"Netroots hot, DLC not"

Ari Berman (The Nation):

Bill Clinton, the former chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), will be delivering the keynote address at the organization's annual conference in Nashville this weekend.

But his wife and other '08 Democratic presidential hopefuls, including Barack Obama and John Edwards, will instead be in South Carolina, addressing the College Democrats annual convention.

It's particularly interesting that Hillary is skipping the New Dem conference, given how former Tennessee Congressman and new DLC Chairman Harold Ford Jr. wrote in a January memo that "I assume there will be an effort to help Senator Clinton's campaign and I would support such an effort."

In contrast, all the major '08 Democrats will be attending the YearlyKos convention in August.

Translation: netroots hot, DLC not.

In recent years, as the party has moved left, the DLC has struggled to maintain its relevance and uniqueness. It wants to remain the player it was in the late 80s and 90s, when it battled for the "soul of the party."

So today longtime leader Al From feels snubbed. "They are looking only at the liberal activists in Iowa," he says of the '08 Dems. "They have tunnel vision."

I wonder what Bill thinks about that.