the democratic house and senate will be dependent on majorities that comprise blue dog "democrats" who will always vote republican and always oppose democrats. And Lieberman will remain as their sainted leader.

Dems simply don't seem capable of playing from a sense of what's right, they don't believe in anything so everything is up for grabs and compromise till they've given away anything that matters. And the repugs/blue dogs know that.

keep to the Fen Causeway

For decades the Democratic party leadership has selected candidates based on the meme that you had to be conservative to beat the Republicans. I don't think that was the real reason- I think they themselves were more comfortable with Republican, conservative political philosophy and leery of any progressive trend, so the blue dogs are their attempt to inoculate the Democratic party against alien, progressive ideas. It has worked. So yes, Obama's biggest enemy, should he suffer an attack of progressive courage, will be the conservative democrats-the Blue Dogs.
In truth, the entire country is suffering the aftermath of 80 years of anti-socialist propaganda . All that is needed is to label a proposal "socialist", and all thought stops, and it goes down in flames.
After reading his first two books, it's clear that Obama's knowledge of the range of European socialist experiments is very limited, and he too seems to react reflexively toward the "S" word. Too bad. Maybe Joe Biden will wise him up-- Biden knows a lot.

Capitalism searches out the darkest corners of human potential, and mainlines them.