http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/10/03/126043/from-street-protests-to-electioneering.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_term=newsBy Tony Pugh | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — Demoralized liberals are trying to get their mojo back. Frustrated with Congress, outmaneuvered by the tea party and all but silent as the GOP swept the 2010 elections, liberals say they've had enough.
On Monday, 2,000 progressive activists who represented more than 200 groups came to Washington to chart a new course for recapturing the 2008 electoral magic that put Barack Obama in office and gave Democrats control of both houses of Congress.
Monday's opening of the three-day "Take Back the American Dream" conference took place as small but vocal bands of protesters demonstrated in various cities nationwide to support the ongoing "Occupy Wall Street" protests in New York.
The American Dream conference, which includes a jobs rally Wednesday on Capitol Hill, is sponsored by the liberal Campaign for America's Future and by Rebuild the Dream, an organization founded by Van Jones, former green jobs adviser for the Obama White House.
The event will try to stir a passionate grass-roots movement of disenchanted liberals who will organize and hit the streets to protest what they see as a hard right turn in American politics after the Great Recession and the 2010 elections.
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