Webb became a Democrat and ran for office, motivated partly by the challenge of attracting disenchanted former Democrats back into the Party, and of moving the Party back toward them.
Reports that New York State Assembly and Senate leaders are discussing moving primary dates from September to the spring ("Both Parties Talk of Moving Primary Date," news article, Sept. 13) should be unwelcome news to those considering challenges to incumbents.
Framed for causing the recession, the party has sounded incapable of moving beyond the "Vote Labour and win a microwave" approach to rethinking the economy.
But the grand talk at one party meeting in 2005 of moving towards addressing broader development objectives as opposed to narrowly economic ones looks misplaced now.
"I will be talking to the party about the process of moving now that I have secured the Westminster seat for the third time and that's a major achievement," he said.
Cameron dismissed the idea of moving his party further to the right to counter the threat of the UK Independence party, which is attracting disenchanted Conservative supporters.
From the left, Sir Edward Heath, a former prime minister, accused Mr Hague of moving the party to the "extreme right".
And the by-election should at last have silenced those Lib Dems who dream of moving their party to the left of Mr Blair in the hope of scooping up disaffected Labour voters in Labour's northern cities.
Polis, who is openly gay, epitomizes the strategy of moving the Party left on cultural issues and center-right on financial and economic issues.
Before his arrival in Belfast, Senator Mitchell said: "I hope very much all of the parties will see the importance of moving this process forward, see the risk of not doing so and come together soon".
