Even if victorious Democrats took conservative stands, they were economically in liberal mainstream

[DeepModem Mom]

TIME: How the Democrats Got Their Message Across
Many of those who were victorious campaigned loudly on traditional themes like economic insecurity
By MICHAEL LINDENBERGER/LOUISVILLE
Posted Thursday, Nov. 09, 2006

In asssessing their election defeat, Republicans tried to take some comfort by noting that many of the victorious Democrats took conservative stands that had, in many cases, more in common with the G.O.P. than with the liberal base of their own party. But even in states like Kentucky and Indiana, hardly hotbeds of liberal politics, those assessments weren't borne out. Although many of the supposed new breed of Democrats opposed abortion, gun control and, in some cases, gay marriage, their stance on economic issues put them in the old-fashioned liberal mainstream.

Take the congressional race in Louisville. Despite the city's location just spitting distance from the Bible Belt — and directly across the river from conservative, rural Southern Indiana — voters veered leftward in picking an unabashed liberal to replace a popular and well-entrenched conservative Republican congresswoman. Indeed, no one in this city has ever mistaken Democrat John Yarmuth — founder and former editor of an alternative newspaper called Louisville Eccentric Observer — as a centrist, much less a conservative.

And that, Yarmuth said in an ebullient acceptance speech Tuesday night, was precisely the key to his victory over Anne Northup, who coasted to a landslide win two years ago and has spent her 10 years in office mastering pork-barrel politics from her perch on the Appropriations Committee....

In an interview Thursday, a hoarse and weary Yarmuth said economic issues — not his support for gay marriage or abortion rights — were what mattered most to voters during the nasty campaign....Yarmuth also points to the defeats by fellow Democrats in two other hotly contested Kentucky races as proof that voters were not necessarily looking for Democrats who campaigned like Republicans. Democrats Mike Weaver and former Congressman Ken Lucas both campaigned hard on conservative credentials, but lost their respective races. "They didn't present a clear alternative and the national wave didn't catch them," said Yarmuth. "Democrats who might have been inclined to vote for them, figured, 'What's the difference?'" Even supposed conservative Democrats like former sheriff Brad Ellsworth in Indiana's 8th District, who trounced Republican incumbent John Hostettler, ran in support of raising the minimum wage and against some of the Bush tax cuts.

In other parts of the country, of course, Democrats like former football star Heath Shuler in North Carolina did win tight races after working hard to establish credentials as conservative as those of the Republican incumbents they beat. But Chuck Todd, editor of The Hotline — the National Journal's daily briefing on politics — pointed out that even conservative Democrats like pro-life and anti-gun control Bob Casey, who defeated Sen. Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania, campaigned loudest on traditional Democratic themes like economic insecurity, the minimum wages and the expansion of health care....

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1557650,00.html?cnn=yes

[rpannier]

1. Thank you for pointing that out

I have said many times...Tester is not a social liberal. He's an economic liberal. He's opposed to gay marriage, but he wants to raise the minimum wage and other things like that.
McCaskill and Webb are much the same.

I take my victories where I can find them.

Economic liberals are better than no liberals at all.