"Obama has governed as a conservative. So, the question for progressives is, “What do we do now?”

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294. there's popular opinion and then there's the opinion of those who can influence elections

popular opinion, left to its own devices, is definitely to the left of washington politics.
the house does not express the will of the people as a whole because enough the power structure, by way of campaign contributions and such, influence turnout on the left and right and tilt those swayable in the middle.

they do this mostly by diverting our attention from the real issues to red-meat crap like flag-burning or the "war on christmas" or other crap. people end up voting for a republican so there will be no flag-burning when in fact is was never a significant problem, the republican isn't going to do a damn thing about it, but he will hand the keys to the treasury to his corporate buddies -- something the poor duped voter was opposed to but was made to believe, if only on election day, that stopping flag-burning was more important.

at this point much of it is simply social identification. many republicans are straight ticket voters because it's become a matter of religion for them. democrats are devils and republicans are saints, and there's no more convincing them otherwise than convincing them that their belief in god is false. but ask them about an issue before they've heard what rush has to say about it and often they come out on the left side.