Moderate Dems become decisive factor

By: Matthew Dallek
May 11, 2009 04:24 AM EST

One critical topic was largely lost amid the media’s grading of Barack Obama’s presidency at its 100-day mark, and the decibel-splitting debate about the GOP’s future: As Sen. Arlen Specter’s party shift shows, for the first time since the mid-1990s, moderate Democrats are a rising, increasingly decisive factor in American politics.

From their efforts to enact bipartisan health care reform to shaping energy and environmental legislation, Democratic moderates form a crucial bloc of votes that will define much of Obama’s legislative agenda. Elected from the South, the Midwest and the interior West, they come from Republican strongholds and claim to speak for moderates and independents — or swing voters.

Sens. Evan Bayh of Indiana, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Mark Warner of Virginia, Kay Hagan of North Carolina and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana have emerged as a formidable legislative force, following in the steps of Bill Clinton’s Democratic Leadership Council on economic issues. One of their greatest concerns is averting a new era of exploding budget deficits

They recall that Clinton enacted a landmark budget in 1993. It raised taxes on corporations and the wealthy, put limits on new social spending and ultimately helped cut the budget deficit and produce a budget surplus in 1998. Clinton’s presidency “marked a profound changeâ€