Al From, founder and chief executive officer of the Democratic Leadership Council, dropped by the office Tuesday and predicted that “despite what people said a year ago, the election this November will be a battle for the political center.”

Of course, that’s what the DLC is all about — convincing Democrats to move toward what Mr. From calls the “progessive center,” where From believes that elections are won or lost. The politician most closely associated with the DLC and its “third way” approach is former President Bill Clinton. The policy initiative most closely associated with DLC politics was welfare reform, signed by Mr. Clinton in 1996. Many liberal Democrats hated its work requirements, but is has seemed to work. As important to Democrats, it gave Mr. Clinton credibility among independents and centrist voters in his 1996 re-election race against Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas.

Mr. From and the DLC officially are neutral in this year’s Democratic primary battle, but he acknowledges that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is a longtime DLC supporter and a personal friend. But he adds that Sen. Barack Obama’s “post partisan” campaign owes a lot to DLC ideas.

“This is a year of rare opportunity for Democrats,” Mr. From said. “We have a chance to build a lasting, enduring majority around the progressive center.”

He identified these key challenges for Democrats this fall: Convincing voters they are serious about keeping the country safe; convincing voters that Democrats can restore an “upward mobility track” in a global economy; soothing middle class anxiety on health care, retirement and college costs.

“Nobody who works in this country ought to be poor,” Mr. From said, repeating the DLC’s mantra. “We have to focus like a laser beam on the forgotten middle class and get away from the brain-dead politics of the left and right.”

Sen. Clinton is following that playbook this week as she campaigns in Indiana ahead of its primary next Tuesday. Today she “commuted” to work in the front seat of a Ford F-250 pickup driven by an Indiana sheet metal worker and stopped at a gas station for smile for cameras and pay for 63 bucks worth of gasoline. Mrs. Clinton, like Republican Sen. John McCain, is proposing a summer-long “holiday” from the 18.4 cents a gallon federal gasoline tax. She’s also promising factory workers in Indiana that her administration will find a way to keep manufacturing jobs from moving overseas.

These are popular appeals to the middle class; whether they are intellectually honest or good public policy is another question. The gasoline tax holiday would cost the federal highway trust fund somewhere between $8 billion and $10 billion, while saving motorists about $4 bucks a fill-up. Nor is it possible to turn back the tide of globalization by making promises that will be impossible to keep.

Sen. Obama — the elitist — is telling people hard truths. There’s no such thing as cheap gas for gas hogs like F-250 pickups (curb weight: 5,800 pounds) and manufacturing jobs will continue to disappear. There’s only the hope of a better job through hard work and education. Mrs. Clinton knows that, but she’s willing to pretend otherwise. If the “third way” is pandering, there’s little hope for real change.