orange county, florida dem ex committee chair doug head has said that greens are jerks who better get with dem program, head also says dems are much more inclined to go after no-party moderates even if greens do jump on board...
assumption that dems are 'liberal' party is not necessarily inaccurate, it does matter somewhat which party controls state legislature/congress... in many states, party leaders differ sharply (in u.s. context) along lib/con spectrum, surveys of national convention delegates have found that that party leaders differ more from each other than party supporters along lib/con spectrum...
moreover, studies indicate that dem-controlled state legislatures enact less conservative policies (though by no means, consistently liberal ones) than rep-controlled assemblies... problem with such studies is that they tend to use more spending as lib variable, dem-majorities tend to spend more but dems in power do not make state any more redistributive (elite theorist tom dye has shown that state economic development is more important indicator of state spending than political ideology)...
re. matter of party control mattering: 1) conventional dem liberals first became paralyzed by inability/ unwillingness to defend/consider alternatives to welfare state they created and then opted for 'new federalism'/'reinventing gov't' direction...few potential allies for leftists in that camp anymore and what is 'left' there for radicals to continue to allow themselves to be absorbed into... 2) despite some similarities, left-liberals and socialists (too often ambiguously lumped together as 'progressives') ultimately have antagonistic political interests/goals... former may have some opportunities for 'conventional' success because they do not contest elite power and will cooperate in isolating latter, latter must oppose former as reformist-reformers (rather than radical-reformers in sense gorz asserted before he said goodbye to working class) whose appeals are based on u.s. political-economic system accommodating their proposals without substantive changes...
socialists should consider running in dem primaries as socialists with no moderation of their views in attempt to move dems to left... state dem organizations have emulated brokerage role of national party, they coordinate pac contributions to their party's nominnes, as recipients of soft money from national party, they use funds for provide media consulting, public opinion polling, other campaign 'services'... socialist who wins dem primary (which isn't that likely if socialist refuses to moderate views to accommodate more voters) ain't gonna receive any help from 'her/his' party in general election... but that socialist may have contributed to expanding 'democratic dialogue' by espousing consistent anti-capitalist perspective...
michael hoover (who has long advocated socialists running socialist slates at local level)...