Democratic Leadership Council

WASHINGTON -- Against the backdrop of yesterday's bad economic news of a steep decline in the stock market, President Clinton found some good news to announce: a steep decline in the budget deficit.Clinton said the deficit has fallen to $22.6 billion, the lowest level in more than two decades, and is down from its peak of $290 billion in 1992, when he first took office."That is a reduction of $267 billion -- more than 90 percent -- even before the balanced budget law saves one red cent," Clinton said, referring to the five-year balanced budget agreement he worked out with congressional Republicans this summer to eliminate the deficit by 2002.

Gov. Martin O'Malley and Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown have spent more than $172,000 in taxpayer dollars since taking office last year on trips for state business and political events around the county, and to foreign locales from Ireland to China, according to travel records obtained by The Sun. The expenses, racked up over 84 days that O'Malley and Brown traveled out of the state during their first 15 months in office, include the cost to dispatch state...

CLEVELAND -- Centrist Democrats searching for a more "mainstream" message for their party unexpectedly turned up a potential new presidential contender yesterday: Sen. John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV of West Virginia.After a speech at the Democratic Leadership Council's annual convention here, Mr. Rockefeller, 53, disclosed that he was reconsidering an earlier decision not to run in 1992."I'm looking at the situation," he told reporters. "The door is a little more open to me."Also addressing the meeting of moderate-to-conservative Democrats were otherpresidential possibilities: Tennessee Sen. Albert Gore Jr., Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, Missouri Representative Richard A. Gephardt and former Massachusetts Sen. Paul E. Tsongas, the only announced candidate.

BOSTON - If humorist Will Rogers were alive today and in Boston, he might want to take back his famous comment: "I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat." Except for the unpleasantness of threatened picketing by unionized city police dissatisfied with an arbitrated wage settlement, the Democrats holding their national convention here this week appear to have their political act together. With the presidential nominee, hometown Sen. John Kerry, and his running mate, Sen. John Edwards, in place, the self-styled "party of the people" seems as much at peace with itself as it has been in years.

THE NEXT chapter in one of the biggest political stories of the past decade will be written today and tomorrow when 160 state and local officials from the 50 states assemble in Baltimore to discuss cutting-edge ideas at the Democratic Leadership Council's third annual "national conversation."These Democratic leaders are part of the new wave of center-left leaders who have assumed power around the globe in recent years.In the 1980s, conservatives dominated Western governments, with Ronald Reagan and George Bush in the United States, Margaret Thatcher in Great Britain and Helmut Kohl in Germany.

We reject both the do-nothing government of the last twelve years as well as the big government theory that says we can hamstring business and tax and spend our way to prosperity.-- Democratic Party Platform, 1992 This remarkable statement, which is due for formal approval at the Democratic National Convention this week, shows how much the party is shedding old liberal orthodoxies and moving right and center with the nomination of Bill Clinton for president and Al Gore for vice president.

NEW YORK - Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, the 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee, suggested last night that former Vice President Al Gore's use of "economic populism" in 2000 campaign speeches could have been one of the factors that cost the Democratic ticket the election. "In an election as close as that one was," he said after a meeting with reporters at a Democratic Leadership Council gathering here, "there were a lot of factors, and that was probably one of them." Lieberman continued to vow that he will not seek the 2004 Democratic nomination if Gore runs and said he will support him if he does.

WASHINGTON -- The slow-starting Democratic presidential campaign picked up momentum yesterday as Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas, a leader of the moderate wing of the party, announced that he is forming an official exploratory committee -- a step toward a formal declaration of candidacy.Mr. Clinton also resigned as chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council, a group of moderate-to-conservative elected officials concerned that their party has been taken over by liberal special-interest groups.

WASHINGTON -- In the winter of their discontent, Democrats are jousting among themselves. It was bound to happen. There are vocal factions within the party that barely manage peaceful coexistence even in the best of times, so an election defeat is sure to trigger hostilities. And now that Democrats find themselves out of power at the White House as well as on Capitol Hill, their moderate and liberal factions are engaged again in what Brian Lunde, a party strategist, ruefully has called "our eternal struggle."

Alton McClain Scarborough will sing in the starring role tonight when "Leader of the Pack" opens at the Theater on the Hill, Western Maryland College. She's a Baltimore native and former member of the singing group Alton McClain and Destiny, which split up in the early '80s when Alton began singing gospel music. She's married to Skip Scarborough, a Grammy Award-winning writer of soul music.Show times are 8 tonight, Saturday night, July 1-3 and 8-10. Ticket cost $8 to $14 and can be reserved by calling (410)

I SEE WHERE the Democratic Leadership Council invited Martin O'Malley to New York in an effort to suck the young Baltimore mayor into its conservative-leaning, servant-to-Wall Street ranks before it's too late. Hoping to strike while the iron is hot and forge O'Malley into another pretty but mush-mouthed politician like Bill Clinton, the DLC got the mayor and the former president on stage for some schmoozy photographs and another one of those famous council discussions about the Democratic Party's future.

NEW YORK - Martin O'Malley strode onto a stage with Bill Clinton yesterday, as a crowd at New York University rose to applaud and the snowy-haired former president wrapped his arm around the young Baltimore mayor. The moment - captured by more than a dozen television cameras and more than 20 reporters from around the country - came at the climax of a two-day conference of Democratic activists who are debating ways to retake the White House after demoralizing defeats in 2000 and last month.

WASHINGTON -- It didn't take long after their election-night setback for the Democrats to resurrect their internal debate over the direction of their party. The immediate resignation of Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri as House Democratic Leader opened the door to a fight for his job between his chief deputy, liberal Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, and centrist Rep. Martin Frost of Texas. When Ms. Pelosi quickly garnered heavy support, Mr. Frost dropped out, but Rep. Harold Ford of Tennessee, a 32-year-old third-termer, jumped in as the moderate alternative.

WASHINGTON -- As the ashes settled after Tuesday night's late election returns, prominent Democrats like National Chairman Terry McAuliffe sifted through the embers for a spark of optimism in their defeat. It was hard to find. They consoled themselves with the fact that, at worst, the Republicans' new majorities in both the House and Senate would be narrow, reflecting the continuing existence of an electorate split down the middle. As Al From, head of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, put it, "It was a 50-50 country before the election, and it's still a 50-50 country.

NEW YORK - Prospective 2004 Democratic presidential candidates told the pro-business, pro-growth Democratic Leadership Council here yesterday that corporate corruption must be attacked, but not in a way that would brand the party as anti-business. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, one of five Democrats addressing the group, said that while "we New Democrats are proud to call ourselves pro-business, now we should make clear that the best way to help business is to come down hard on those who betray it."

NEW YORK - Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, the 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee, suggested last night that former Vice President Al Gore's use of "economic populism" in 2000 campaign speeches could have been one of the factors that cost the Democratic ticket the election. "In an election as close as that one was," he said after a meeting with reporters at a Democratic Leadership Council gathering here, "there were a lot of factors, and that was probably one of them." Lieberman continued to vow that he will not seek the 2004 Democratic nomination if Gore runs and said he will support him if he does.

Washington.--In 1984, an MIT economist named Martin Weitzman published a short book called ''The Share Economy.'' The book made a new argument for an old economic reform, profit-sharing.Partisans of profit-sharing had traditionally argued that if workers have a stake in an enterprise, they will be more productive. Mr. Weitzman advanced a more ''hard-boiled'' rationale. He claimed that profit-sharing was nothing less than the solution to the riddle of how to achieve full employment without inflation.

TWO YEARS and nine months before the next presidential primary, House minority leader Richard Gephardt has effectively broken with the Clinton administration and served notice he will challenge Vice President Al Gore for the Democratic nomination. By coming out against the balanced budget agreement forged by Mr. Clinton and the Republican leadership on Capitol Hill, the Missouri congressman has deliberately called attention to the ideological fault line between liberals and moderates in his party.

WASHINGTON -- In the winter of their discontent, Democrats are jousting among themselves. It was bound to happen. There are vocal factions within the party that barely manage peaceful coexistence even in the best of times, so an election defeat is sure to trigger hostilities. And now that Democrats find themselves out of power at the White House as well as on Capitol Hill, their moderate and liberal factions are engaged again in what Brian Lunde, a party strategist, ruefully has called "our eternal struggle."

President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore will be the featured guests at a gathering of the Democratic Leadership Council in Baltimore next month, the group announced yesterday. The centrist DLC's "national conversation" is expected to attract more than 150 Democratic officials from around the country to discuss issues. Clinton, one of the early leaders of the DLC, is to participate in an interactive discussion on the Internet with British Prime Minister Tony Blair July 14. Organizers said about 50,000 Internet users will be able to log on with the two leaders.