OK, gather round, kids. And read this in
Slick Rick's voice.
Once upon a time way long ago
When people were leftist and lived in the flow
When liberals were strong and the future free
Muskie was the front runner nominee
He had a great team of liberal might
He'd been a prime mover for Civil Rights
He was anti-war, He'd been Humphrey's veep
But Dick's dirty tricks caused him to weep
But still his peeps displaced the ol' New Deal thing
And for 20 years held down the liberal wing
It was nearly Muskie rather than Kennedy who challenged Carter from the left in 1980; had he, we might have been spared Reagan. Chuck Todd, Sam Nunn and a few others founded the DLC in the late 80s to try to pull the south back to the Democrats. They needed to de-emphasize the Democrats' leadership on civil rights and social progress and basically throw southern racists a bone before it was too late. They decided that urban blacks and young liberals were undependable constituents and/or would insist on actual systemic changes that the white middle class would reject. The DLC became a counter weight to liberals and by the early 90s they saw Al Gore and Bill Clinton as their vehicles to get back into power. But basically the Clintons were too slick for them -- they used them to win the nomination, then brought in their own cronies, stacked the party leadership with surrogates, and bought off their other high prospect with the vice presidency. (The Clintons have never liked sharing power at any level.) The disgorged southern conservative Democrats either switched parties or died off, leaving the Clintons in complete control of the party.
Obama and Dean were speed bumps, and both had great success reminding people of liberal principles, but the Clintons were always there lurking in the background. This is their last shot, though, since the political winds are against them and their core supporters are ancient and so high on the hog they have no drive left. If liberals can wrest the nomination from Hillary they'll be out of leverage and out of time. The flip side, of course, is that the Clintons have always been vindictive and they never help anyone but themselves, so they'll take all their toys and sit the campaign out, whereas if Bernie loses the nomination he'll campaign hard for Hillary in the Fall. So we're in a blackmail situation.
Hillary's federal court nominees would probably be solid, however. She actually does understand constitutional law and she understands generational change in a way I think Bill didn't. And hey who knows -- maybe the old battle axe has just been holding back, biting her tongue, biding her time, enduring all the humiliations all these years, only to emerge on Inauguration Day as THE GREATEST LIBERAL OF ALL TIME, B1TCHES!!!
but Trump still trails her by a good bit.
