Various annoying things in this NYT article (note to Claire McCaskill, maybe it's not so bright to insult your future colleagues right of the bat), but it at least picks up on the fact that those elected to Congress have a pretty strong economic populist streak to them. Frankly, to the extent that this is true is really makes these the most liberal incoming class in a long time. Whatever the merits of coverage of social issues, there's at least acknowledgment that lefty-liberal social views exist. More leftwing economic views have been almost entirely shut out from the public discussion for quite some time. The Elite Consensus while vaguely center-left-but-don't-much-care on social issues is almost psychotically hostile to anything that deviates from free market fundamentalism, and that's gotten more and more true even as empirical justification for it has gotten thinner and thinner.
Maybe we'll actually get a real debate on this stuff for once.
