For the past year I have believed that DFA has proven that the internet is the most effective tool for delivering a defined political message into homes of those individuals who are willing to financially support liberal politics because it is unintrusive and can be done on terms that the targeted individual can control, and that this radically new development is not going away. DFA has proved it can raise large sums of money for campaigns outside of traditional party fundraising, thereby demonstrating that the liberal wing need no longer be subserviant to the centrist wing of the party that now controls both the money, as well as the means for raising it.
Which leads to the question - why should the two wings remain within the same party? Why can't DFA serve as a template for a truly progressive third party, aligned with both the Greens and the DEMs on individual issues, while also serving as a bridge to the smaller radical-Left U.S. parties, thereby adding fundraising heft and a core constituency of gay rights advocates,radical healthcare reformists, and youth voters, away from the moderate middle political spectrum? It could peal away more radical voters willing to leave the traditional DEM coalition (trial lawyers, educators, organized labor, seniors, and minorities), thereby allowing those groups to assert more influence in the DEM policies which would keep future DEM campaigns more cohesive, and thus more appealing to unaffiliated independents.
The fear that this would leave the REPs as a monolith party against two smaller, divided parties, is countered by the fact that the REPs are engaged in a great push to co-opt ever larger shares of DEMs constituencies, thereby demonsrating their own schisms; and having a breakaway movement on the left would agitate the body politic by providing a model to copy for a simlar break on the Right from the more reactionary wing, strengthening their hand in dealings with the REP leadership, forcing the REPs further to the Right to maintain their grip, thus leaving a vacuum in the middle for the DEMs to exploit. Or, more likely, the REPs continue to jackboot their constituencies into line for the United Front rallying cry, and the DEMS, the Greens, and DFA serve as an aligned coalition of independent parties in permanent opposition, ala Euro multi-party governments.