I'm a conservative on the key issues of the day. Taxes, Military Policy, and Social Services. But I'm liberal on many too. Pro-Choice, Pro-Environmental policy, Not religious.  I also support civil unions for gay couples (though not marriage).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to paint myself out as some sort of moderate.  However, one of the things I have noticed is a tendancy of those on the far left to take the "all or nothing" point of view.  If you don't adhere to all their positions, you're a right wing kook to be derided.

To be fair, conservatives are guilty of this too. But it is much more pravelent in my experience for the left to drive away those who have any conservative opinions and label them as "far right".

The problem when you do that is that you end up having a very small group left to carry your banner.  For instance, if you're pro-life on abortion, you can forget speaking at the Democratic National Convention.

The Democrats need to try to be more inclusive.  But at the same time, they need to shed their militant extremists.  A difficult balancing act to be sure.  But as has been pointed out elsewhere, the Democrats have been steadily losing ground since 1996.  By all accounts, the Democrats should have at least picked up a senate seat or too.  2004 was the EASY senate re-election one.  2006 is going to be even tougher for them.

What do you call a Senate with 60 votes held by one party? One party rule.  I happen to believe it important for the US to have two strong national parties (at the very least two).  But election after election the Democrats are losing more and more ground.

They need to start recognizing that just because someone doesn't agree with them on some of the issues doesn't mean they have no common ground.  Moreover, they need to not demonize those same people (Bill O'Reilly, for instance, is many things but he's not "far right" as one example).