I already posted this a comment but I want everyone to see it. Sorry if this pisses you off that I'm posting it again.

What we have now is the Republicans moving to the right. Some Dems moving to the right. We must remember that we are leaving out 50 percent of the country that didn't vote. Why don't they vote? Because they feel they can't make a difference and are disillusioned  with the two party system which they feel is not looking out for them. If we present liberal policies that they can connect to then we can get this large segment of the population voting for us and creaming the Republicans.

 Plus, anyone who thinks that we lose by being liberal has disregarded the past two elections. Al Gore and George Bush had very similar ideas. Tax cuts, free trade, balancing the budget, pro-death penalty, pro-mandatory sentencing. Al gore didn't campaign on any universal healthcare system. He supported the failed war on drugs. He worded with Bill Clinton to cut funding for many social programs.

This year, we had John Kerry. Didn't talk about the envirement. Voted for the Patriot Act. Voted for the war. Pro-defense spending. Didn't run on universal healthcare. He voted for NAFTA and many other free trade agreements. He didn't advocate a pro-choice view enough during the second debate, instead giving the "I'm personally against it" crap. John Kerry was pro "war on terror."

Some people must be ignorant to think that we lost this election and in 2000 by being too liberal. Furthermore, all those senate seats we lost in the south, well all our candidates there were moderate/conservative Democrats. Then we have Barbara Boxer, Barack Obama and Russ Feingold who all shared tons of votes with Bush.