Growing thunder from the left

Liberal Democratic activists turned out in a show of force in Washington the other day to send a message to their party: We’re mad as hell and we’re not taking it anymore.

More than 1,000 leftists — representing labor unions, feminists, environmentalists, peace groups and other like-minded organizations — packed the Omni Shoreham’s biggest ballroom last week in one of the largest gatherings of liberal activists in 20 years, according to Campaign for America’s Future, the liberal advocacy group that organized the event.

The conference focused on exciting and motivating these forces for the 2004 elections.

These are the foot soldiers who represent much, if not most, of the Democratic base and turn out in overwhelming numbers to vote in the party primaries. These are the people who helped get presidential candidates like George McGovern, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis and Al Gore nominated.

“The political system has been fairly disappointing for our people since George W. Bush got into the White House,” said Roger Hickey, co-director of America’s Future. “For a while, our people got depressed. Now they are angry and want to turn that anger into political activity.”

After three days of fire-and-brimstone speeches, panels and strategy sessions, it’s easy to see why they left here more determined than ever to steer the Democratic Party even further to the left in 2004. Consider the names of the panels that were held: “The Next Stage for the Peace Movement,” “Reversing the Right’s Hold on the Media” and “Beating Conservatives on the Ground.”

Notably, there was a lot of self-criticism of the party and its leadership, with many saying it was too wishy-washy and needed to get tougher with Mr. Bush.

“We aren’t going to pull our punches. We’re going to take our gloves off,” said America’s Future co-director Robert Borosage, who ridiculed Democratic leaders “who tuck their tails and bite their tongues.”

Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg sparked prolonged applause when he said “the biggest failing of the Democrats is not having challenged those tax cuts from day one.”

The roster of speakers was a who’s who of the party’s liberal wing, including former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, PBS commentator Bill Moyers, Ralph Neas of People for the American Way, nearly a dozen liberal college professors and a cluster of the party’s most liberal presidential candidates, including the Rev. Al Sharpton, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry.

Not surprisingly, Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, the party’s most conservative presidential hopeful, turned down an invitation to address the group.

Mr. Dean echoed the conference’s most frequent mantra by declaring the “need to repeal all of the Bush tax cuts.” Mr. Neas said that, if Democrats win back control of Congress, “we’re going to block any right-wing [Supreme Court] nominee in the mold of [Justices] Anthony Scalia and Clarence Thomas.”

The message was heavily anti-capitalism, anti-business and anti-profit. “We believe in the politics where people come ahead of profits,” an AFL-CIO official said.

Mr. Kerry attempted to balance his own career-long liberalism with a dose of moderation on national security issues — “We have to be clear about how we make America safer and stronger” — that was greeted with stony silence.

Story Continues →