Davin said:

"when 'Liberal' politicians planned and won WWII, built NATO, Ended the great Depression, Brought real Civil Rights to america and built a social safety net...."

You're talking 1930s politics. 2005 - 1930 = 75 years ago. You might as well be talking about William Jennings Bryan and the Free Silver Movement. The traditional notions of "conservative" and "liberal" are meaningless. The "liberals" are the real conservatives clinging to the obsolete politcs of my grandparent's generation (my grandparents were strong supporters of FDR's "New Deal"). I prefer the labels:

Realists
Paleoconservatives
liberals (small "l") = crypto-conservatives

Herbert Hoover, Ronald Reagan and Jesse Helms are paleoconservatives (I don't like them). Liberals like Dean and Kerry are crypto-conservatives. Kerry hasn't had a new idea Since the 1970s.

I consider myself a "realist".

History has caught up with and passed traditional liberalism. Elements of traditional liberalism (1930-1950s Democratic Party goals) have triumphed and been incorporated into America's main stream political fabric, e.g. racial equality, women's rights, etc. However the socialist agenda of the FDR's New Deal has mostly failed or is in the process of failure, e.g. Social Security and Medicare.
The fig leaf that American socialism/liberalism had some sort of a future fell away when the Soviet Empire imploded in the 1990s.

What I'd like to see is the Republicans jettison their paleoconservatives (fat chance) and the Democrats jettison their crypto-conservatives (a distinct possibility). I'd prefer to see both parties debating aspects of political realism.

If this reform doesn't happen then we'll see a repeat of what happened in the 19th century with the failure of the Whig and Federalist parties. This is unnecessary IMHO because like the British Labour Party, the American political parties can reinvent themselves.

Gary