the middle class and set a course toward financial ruin . The New Democrats were quickly swapping tried and true Democratic Party values for tried and true Republican virtues , and within no time had banished the real " left " in anything but name from the political process . Prior to the 1990s , old Democrats were careful to reconcile their rank and file with the " limousine liberals " who financed candidates and funded campaigns , but according to the author of Reinventing Democrats , Kenneth Baer , the DLC was now brazenly selling itself as an " elite organization [ within the party ] funded by elite - corporate and private - donors . "