Over at CA Majority Report, former gubernatorial wannabe Steve Westly looks at what he calls the, “three key lessons from this year’s midterm election.” Setting aside the fact that you should never take advice from anyone who hired Garry South, the biggest problem is what Westly failed to learn.

The defining characteristic of this year’s campaigns was the wholesale rejection of the Democratic Leadership Council. Westly was DLC and lost to a candidate who asked the DLC to take his name off their list. In CA-11, the DLC route Steve Filson took resulted in him being stomped by 24% points.

That same day in Montana, Jon Tester scored a 26% point victory over a DLC candidate with far more money. Two months later, former DLC Chair Joe Lieberman lost his primary.

This is a trend, the biggest primary in 2008 is against former DLC Vice Chair Ellen Tauscher.

We are seeing the same dynamic in the 2008 presidential primary. The first two major candidates to pull out, Mark Warner and Evan Bayh, are both prominent DLC members and current Chair Tom Vilsack is expected to follow suit shortly. That will leave Hillary Clinton as the only remaining DLC candidate and her campaign is imploding.

This might be a painful lesson for Westly, but it is the lesson that should be drawn from the midterms. That, and never hire Garry South.