On Sun, 6 Jun 2004 SergioL652 at aol.com wrote:
> Is he defining "progressive" as voting for Gore? That seems a faulty
> assumption.
He's using the word differently than you. Professional Democrats like him are beginning to use the word "progressive" as a euphemism for "liberal," a word they perceive as still too loaded against them to openly embrace. And yes, all they mean is people who have the kind of beliefs that would normally incline them to vote for the Democratic party.
The recent WSJ article Doug posted on the "renaissance of the left" mentioned this:
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20040531/012039.html
It also contains a passage in which Robert Borosage uses the word in your sense -- as a euphemism for leftist :o)
Michael