March 18, 2006
50 IN '08:
Emboldened Democrats court party's left wing: Sen. Clinton seen abandoning turf (Nina J. Easton, March 17, 2006, Boston Globe)
Former senator John Edwards got high marks from labor for a new effort to unionize hotel workers, and Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold's demand this week that President Bush be censured was music to the ears of activists on the left.Meanwhile, Mark Warner, former Virginia governor, recently hired one of the leftist blogosphere's biggest names to run his Internet outreach campaign, and Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana began a blog on the liberal Huffington Post, peddling his foreign policy views.
The next round of prospective Democratic presidential candidates, even those with centrist credentials, is actively courting the Democratic Party's left wing -- which speaks loudly through its blogs, enjoys rising fund-raising clout built on Howard Dean's 2004 campaign, and is imbued with a confidence that it can build on Republican disarray. The Democrats are rushing to fill a void left in the hearts and minds of many liberal activists by New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's efforts to move to the center, particularly on the Iraq war.
With even the Canucks, the Krauts, and the Frogs moving Right the Democrats move further Left than John Kerry? Posted by Orrin Judd at March 18, 2006 9:47 AM
Will someone who can read through all this drivel please reveal the name of "one of the leftist blogosphere's biggest names" hired by Senator Warner. A cursory glance through the article didn't reveal it.
Posted by: erp at March 18, 2006 10:00 AMerp:
It's Belshazaritong Tsarevichskiovitcher. Pretty big name, huh?
Posted by: obc at March 18, 2006 11:10 AMHillary's apparently worried that Feingold will be able to put a calm face on the beliefs of the rabid left that Howard Dean couldn't manage in 2004, and thereby collect the votes of some of the more rational party members in the 2008 primary. Dean scared off voters at the Iowa caucuses who went with the dull-but-just-about-as-liberal Kerry, so the missus may have to move left out of fear those same people won't be frightened by Feingold, who even in his censure motion this week still came across as no more charismatic than Joe Lieberman.
(Of course the problem for Feingold, or for the missus down the line is, once you have the hearts and minds of these people, how the hell do you keep their mouths shut for all of 2008? Feingold may be able to put a boring face on the left's plan to bug out on the War on Terror, but the folks around him probably won't be able to keep their manic pronucements to themselves for more than a week or two at best.)
Posted by: John at March 18, 2006 11:40 AM