Where Are The News Stories on the Democrats Becoming A Fringe Party?

Contentions in this post makes a good point

Pete, you raise a key point about Evan Bayh’s departure: his status as a “centrist” makes the retirement a particularly troubling one for Democrats. There is ample reason to dispute that label, but until now he’s been able to claim the mantle of centrism and fiscal moderation. So his departure should set off a round of soul-searching by Democrats as to whether they’ve strayed too far to the Left, have become ideological purists, and are losing their appeal to the great middle of the political spectrum. Right?

Well that was the media’s endless storyline when a host of liberal-to-moderate Republicans, especially in the northeast, lost seats or defected to the Democratic party. Then we heard the cries that the GOP was “intolerant” or becoming a “fringe” party. But consider the retirees and many of the endangered Democratic incumbents (e.g., Bayh, Blanche Lincoln, Arlen Specter, Michael Bennet, Byron Dorgan). A Democratic Senate caucus without those names would be much smaller but also far more liberal in composition, at a time when the country is reasserting its basic Center-Right perspective. That seems like a recipe for more trouble, unless of course Democrats actually listen to the message being sent by voters. If they self-correct their course and moderate not only their rhetoric but also their voting records, they might save some seats and be better positioned after the election to restore the image of their party, shed the tax-and-spend and weak-on-national-security labels, and remain competitive for 2012.

Now of course not all these people might not defeated. In Indiana , I guess we will learn soon whom the Dems pick, they might put up a conservative Democrat to run.

However liberal groups have been targeting conservative to moderate democrats lately. We shall see if the media picks up on this storyline or if that is just reserved to the GOP