-A single mother who makes less than a living wage working in the cafeteria of a hospital, who has high-school aged kids and got a chunk of her political values from sympathizing with antiwar sentiments in the 70s, who very occasionally will read liberal blogs like daily kos. -A straight-laced Christian girl I went to high school with, who is now a computer coder and stagehand in Austin, Texas, who first started feeling more liberal than her parents after becoming friends with gay people in the community theater plays she helps put on. -A retired african-american truck driver in north philadelphia who is a fervent supporter of the local black political machine, who hates republicans guts. -A white-collar municipal employee in ventura county california, who is moderately active in his union (seiu) and who decided to run for a school board seat in the small city he lives in because he was horrified at how extremist conservative the person occupying his district's seat was, got his union local to help his candidacy, and won the seat. -A 30 year old puerto rican drywaller in Alexandria VA who doesn't care very much at all about politics, but votes every election, always for the democrats, because "what, go for the other side? are you fucking kidding man?!".
This is what modern american liberalism and the base of the Democratic party actually looks like, demographically and ideologically. Idiosyncratic and certainly not currently consumed with revolutionary dreams, but also realistically the backbone of whatever positive things happen and our only bulwark against a country actually being ruled by the likes of Palin, Beck, Limbaugh and their fans. If your Left can't get 'this bunch', your left ain't getting off the ground anyway, so don't sweat it.