[Noachian]

If this scenario proves to be true then what happens to the radical liberal policies of the left?

Will they be dismantled in short order or left alone to fester like a sore wound?

[mabelkitty]

The droves of Dems retiring tells me it is an internal protest against Clintonizing the party.
They seem to have no problem handing a super-majority to any Prez wannabe in 2004. Specifically Hill.

[only1percent]

The left has a powerful redoubt in academia. Left-wing ideas don't ever die, they simply spend some time incubating in safety.

There are many examples of this.

Most people thought that the rise of Clinton and DLC types meant the end of the old "soft on crime" Democrats. Wrong. Opposition to strong policing, the death penalty, etc., simply retreated to departments of sociology and the like, to retool the message and are now making a strong push back into the mainstream.

It took a few more years for the Gingrich revolution to change the fundamental approach in welfare and related poverty policy -- but the old-line entitlement folks who think that high-school-drop-out unemployed unwed moms should be able to keep having kids at government expense are biding their time, too.