Pushing a Liberal Agenda, With Democrats as Target

By JACKIE CALMES
NYT

WASHINGTON — From the capital to Arkansas, liberals plan to spend this week aiming some not-so-friendly fire at President Obama and Congressional Democrats.

Up to 2,000 liberal activists began assembling here on Monday for a conference to press the White House and Congress to fight harder for an ambitious progressive agenda, including a generous jobs bill, even as Democrats returned from a holiday recess to resume talks on further shrinking the proposed legislation to satisfy deficit-conscious colleagues.

But if things in the capital were not going as the activists wanted, they held out hope for change should Senator Blanche Lincoln, a Democrat they deem too conservative, lose in a runoff on Tuesday night for her party’s nomination. Liberal groups had mobilized behind her rival, Bill Halter, in what they called “a shot across the bow” to other centrists who obstruct or weaken the Democratic agenda.

As dismayed as the left-leaning groups are by Congress’s Democratic leadership, which they see as too conciliatory to party conservatives, many of them ultimately blame Mr. Obama for not standing up more forcefully to Republicans.

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