"Moderate" Democrats are now openly plotting to thwart the Obama administration and the Democratic congressional leadership. From The Concern Troll, I mean, The Politico:
Moderate and conservative Democrats in the Senate are starting to choke over the massive spending and tax increases in President Barack Obama's budget plans and have begun plotting to increase their influence over the agenda of a president who is turning out to be much more liberal than they are.
A group of 14 Senate Democrats and one independent huddled behind closed doors on Tuesday, discussing how centrists in that chamber can assert more leverage on the major policy debates that will dominate this Congress.(...)
If the moderate Democrats in the Senate are willing to work with moderate Republicans - as Bayh said they are eager to do - they will negate the White House's ability to portray opposition to Obama's spending as partisan obstructionism.
So, a group of Senators are now working, behind closed doors, on how to shift congressional legislation to the right on the ideological spectrum. While these Senators happen to the Democrats, how, exactly, is this different from what Republicans do? When a group of politicians work together in an attempt to pull the legislation of the governing party closer to that of the opposition party, than that group is doing the exact same thing as the opposition party.
Besides their oppositional work, I don't know why these Senators get to be called "moderates," given that President Obama's spending proposals are wildly popular. Given current popular opinion, either these Senators are actually right-wing, or about 60% of the country is now to the left of moderates.