I've always argued that you have to disagregate the Dems into its multiple factions, just as you have to look at coalition governments in Europe to distinguish left parties from their more moderate coalition allies.
There is a basic social democratic core of the Dems in the House of about 100 candidates. That is the number who supported single payer health care, voted against welfare deform, and generally vote right on almost any issue you can name. There is another core of about half that number, the rough membership of the Progressive Caucus, that will push even harder for relatively innovative and progressive legislation.
That works out to about 25% of the House being social democrat or better and within that about 10% of the House that would be considered Left in most countries. Because of the nature of party campaigns in first-past-the-post systems - coalitions formed during primaries rather than after elections - the rhetoric of internal factional divisions in the Dems is not as clear, but the actual voting patterns are pretty distinct.
-- Nathan Newman
----- Original Message ----- From: "Seth Ackerman" <SAckerman at FAIR.org> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Thursday, March 01, 2001 7:03 PM Subject: RE: House Passes Bankruptcy Bill- Majority of Dems vote No
For 47% of Democrats to vote for a bill that has no merit except as a giveaway to the banking industry is disgraceful. It's not even like debt reduction, which at least has a wide mainstream ideological apparatus supporting it. 47% of Dems voted unambiguously to screw the people they're supposedly "fighting for."
Seth
> House passed bankruptcy bill 306-108 Thursday with all Republicans voting
> Yes.
>
>