Reply #3: Not true. Obama calls himself and his policies "progressive." Hillary does the same.

[No Elephants]

Neither of them would claim to be the left wing of the Democratic Party. Rather, she was a founding member of the DLC and he is a self described New Democrat, which is the same thing as being DLC. DLC is not the left wing of the Democratic Party by any stretch of the imagination.

I doubt either of them wants to be known as "the left of the left," which Rahm, chief of staff to both Obama and Hillary's husband, derided and showed contempt for. So did Gibbs. For that matter, so did Obama on more than one occasion, especially during the the many months the left of the Democratic Party was pushing for medicare for all, or at least a strong public option.

So, yes, they do self describe as progressives. And, I believe, they do so accurately.

But they don't also self-describe as the left wing of the Democratic Party or as liberals--and they are neither.

Among hundreds, maybe thousands, of other things, both of them put Ronald Reagan in their respective lists of Top Ten Presidents in all U.S. history. No one who is actually in the left wing of the Democratic Party would ever do that.

Indeed, Obama said that his policies were those of a moderate Republican of the 1980s. So no, he never self-described as the left wing of the Democratic Party nor as a liberal.

And he and Hillary are accurate in both self describing as progressives and in notself-describing as the left of the left or as liberals.

The founder of the Progressive Policy Institute signed the PNAC and was an employee of the DLC when only he and Al From were full time employees of the DLC. Neither of them ever claimed to be the left of the Democratic Party, either. To the contrary, the DLC was formed to steer the Democratic Party to the right. There was never any secret about that.

I am not even sure the Democratic Party has a left wing (in terms of politicians) anymore.

All that aside, since when is "self-described" the way we determine the definition of a word?

Anorexic typically self-describe as fat, yet their bones are very obvious to a casual observer. A self description can be the product of error, delusion, a desire to deceive, etc.