Righting the left

Politics: Liberal donors pour tens of millions of dollars into upstart competitors for influential conservative think tanks | Becky Perry

Progressive politics is back. It's smarter, it's sleeker, and it's moving America forward, one policy memo at a time.

That's the message, at least, at the Center for American Progress (CAP)—the rising star in a new generation of liberal think tanks designed to imitate the strategy of their conservative counterparts in Washington's war of ideas.

Democratic disillusionment fueled liberal think-tank growth following the 2004 presidential election, when Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) lost even after donors poured millions into Democratic "527" groups like MoveOn.org. In January 2005, the nation's wealthiest liberal donors banded together to support a new political proposition—that in order to win, the Democrats would have to think beyond the next election cycle.