In Session: Liberals find backing in poll numbers

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by Perry Bacon Jr., The Washington Post
February 2, 2010

Progressive groups, worried that Democrats are too cautious, are speaking the language that lawmakers may hear clearest: poll numbers.

After Republican Scott Brown's election to the Senate in Massachusetts on Jan. 19, a coalition of liberal groups released a survey of Bay State voters who backed Obama in 2008 and who voted for Brown or did not vote in the special election. The findings, according to MoveOn.org, one of the groups, showed that respondents "worry that Democrats in power have not done enough to combat the policies of the Bush era" and want "stronger, more progressive action on health care reform."

Those findings parallel MoveOn's priorities; other surveys might suggest another course for Democrats. But the poll illustrates a shift in tactics by liberal groups, which are increasingly funding polls that buttress their view that Democrats should govern as a populist, liberal party instead of from the center. The blog Firedoglake recently released polls showing the political weakness of some conservative Democrats, whom the blog has been criticizing.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/01/AR2010020103585.html

Also in today's "In Session" column: Newt Gingrich is collecting ideas for a revised "Contract with America", and one Democrat and two Republicans in the Senate sponsor a bill barring funding for federal court terrorist trials.