>Nancy Pelosi is far to the left of old Rayburn and a good deal to the left
>of Tip O'Neill on social issues, yet she easily won election as majority
>leader. I could point to the median voter in the Democratic caucus and
>their leftward move from decades past.
>
>But I know folks will continue to maintain that you should measure the party
>by its most rightwing members like John Breaux and Zell Miller or Lieberman,
>but that's like saying that the GOP is the party of Lincoln Chafee.
That's all very nice, but why do all these left Dems have so little influence on either policy or political discourse? Remember that great Nation cover featuring Pelosi in her "ready to rumble" pose? It was funny at the time, but now it doesn't. They've got slightly less than half of Congress, but you'd never know it.
Doug