WP: Among Democrats, The Energy Seems To Be on the Left

Ten years after Bill Clinton proclaimed a centrist "New Democrat" revolution, the left is once again a driving force in the party.

They do not call themselves "liberals" anymore; the preferred term today is "progressives." But in other ways, they are much the same slice of the electorate that dominated the Democratic Party from 1972 to the late 1980s: antiwar, pro-environment, suspicious of corporations and supportive of federal social services.

In recent weeks, the progressive left has: lifted a one-time dark-horse presidential candidate, former Vermont governor Howard Dean, into near-front-runner status; dominated the first serious Internet "primary"; and convened the largest gathering of liberal activists in decades.

<snip>

Much of the credit for the left's revival goes to President Bush, whose policies and personality seem to touch the nerves of hard-core Democrats like a dental drill. The war in Iraq was a catalytic event, drawing hundreds of thousands of readers to anti-Bush Web sites and filling the sails of the Dean campaign. But this is not just about the war.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35640-2003Jul9.html

over here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=568&mesg_id=568&page=

are (largely? reluctantly) willing to accept these "winning" centrist issues in Dean- But why mention that? It shoots the heckles of "Mondale" to hell:

snip>

One school of thought says that former president Bill Clinton, by supporting welfare reform, the death penalty and deficit-cutting economics, had set the stage for Democrats to reclaim their status as America's majority party.

You have to be left to not like war, be pro-environment, and suspicious of corporations??? I'd say that makes most of America left then???

pp23

The press is a major part of the "lurch to the right" and here they maintain the lie.

...anyone to the left of Benito Mussolini is a radical liberal. Haven't you been paying attention to Faux News? ;-)

It's not about Left vs. Right...it's about Establishment vs. the rest of us. The Left / Right paradigm is a mental block designed by the Establishment.

LOL !!!!
To all those DLC phonies pampering Bush!!!!

Y'all just don't get it!!!!

Is this how low the left has sunk?

Is this how low the left has sunk?

"I think it's pathetic that I'm considered the left-wing liberal," Dean said. "It shows just how far to the right this country has lurched."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11710-2003Jul5.html