The party now resembles a protection racket with an army of volunteers, with friends who never suffer and enemies who never relax.

Eli,

This Ben Domenech piece on Hilary, Obama, the Progressives and the Democratic party is interesting. I don't agree with all of it. I did find this passage interesting.

History may ultimately consider Obama’s 2008 nomination as a representation not of progressivism’s resurgent appeal, but as its death rattle—a speed bump along the way to the Democratic Party’s becoming a fully corporatist, Clinton-owned entity. In practice, the party now resembles a protection racket with an army of volunteers, with friends who never suffer and enemies who never relax. And who are those enemies? Not big business or Wall Street, which has paid their way to new alliances; not America’s insurers, whose products Democrats have made it illegal not to buy; not privacy-challenging government, which Obama has expanded to unprecedented degrees. No, the only enemies who really matter to today’s Democratic Party are those wayward intolerant social-policy traditionalists with their un-American views of religious liberty.

It's unfair to tag only the Democrats as a protection racket when the Republicans can and do engage in protection as well, and the idea that the payer in the racket (insurance companies, Wall Street, big business) is now a friend, or not an enemy is a stretch.  The protection racket analogy is however, apt, in my view.

 Bill