The Left-behind Left

Along the lines of what I said yesterday, here's what Charles Krauthammer had to say in today's WaPo about how the Democrats won on Tuesday: "The result is that both parties have moved to the right. The Republicans have shed the last vestiges of their centrist past, the Rockefeller Republicans. And the Democrats have widened their tent to bring in a new crop of blue-dog conservatives."

This, I think, shows the difference between 1994 and 2006. In 1994, Bill Clinton was punished for trying to be liberal and progressive. The country had moved to the right, and the Democratic Party had not caught up. In 2006, on the other hand, it was the party system that shifted to the right. The GOP is now so lost in neoconservative-and-religious-right-land that the Democrats now firmly hold the center. Just how firmly is the question for 2008....