Add to that the fact that the corporate wing gets legislation and the veneer of expertise handed to them by their corporate backers, and House progressives are mostly forced to come up with things on their own, and the outside advice they do get includes things as politically dead on arrival as temporary nationalization of banks, and its not wonder that the progressive wing of the House Democrats do not have a horse in the race. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.