Party has moved been moving left since Clinton. Clinton was more conservative than George W Bush. Balance Budgets(fired a bunch government workers), welfare reform,NAFTA etc.

The base has been, the representatives have been sclerotic. A good number of them came in with clinton and have had essentially the same politics as clinton.

Biden had a decent representation of left cabinet picks. But otherwise, the party has been pretty slow to change. Obama, in particular, gets remember as being progressive yet he truly was not. He took some antiwar stances and then failed to deliver on those promises. That was about the end of his left leaning policies.