A contrast between the welcome afforded to thousands in recent weeks and the camps built by the Samaras government explains why disappointed progressives swung back to Syriza in the polling stations.
The extent of the information to which we have access, and the means with which we communicate it, may be reaching the end of their progressive pendulum swing, and the next few years could bring them crashing backwards, as more restrictive security policies, harsher penalties, and newly granted powers make the process of finding and sharing that information more difficult and more risky.
I was one of the last pragmatic progressives that swung from Hillary to Obama.
We need to find a language and policy agenda that unites the core progressive base and "swing" voters - middle class folks in the inner suburbs, people who are now losing their jobs, their homes, their ability to send their kids to college or save for retirement.
(Some neat Sydney intra left wing politics on display here this morning. Everyone's having a chat to supporters in Marrickville in this transaction. There is, of course, fierce competition in inner city Sydney for swinging progressive votes).
If they did these kinds of things, progressives and those swing vote populists would not fear having Bill Daley as Chief of Staff.
Four other progressives elected in swing districts in 2006 and 2008 who similarly defended their positions in the face of a conservative backlash couldn't withstand the wave that swept them out of office.
But top Democrats praised the work Kaine has done in pushing a progressive agenda in a swing state.
In some respects it embodies the most powerful aspects of conservative moral logic, strengthening conservative moral logic in the minds not only of conservatives, but also of independents who have both conservative and progressive world views and swing between them.
Swing Left, which links volunteers with progressive House candidates in nearby swing districts, has drawn more than 220,000 people since it launched two weeks ago.
