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a "membership" of 1.4 million Americans, plus 700,000 more people outside
the country. The MoveOn political action committee has raised $6.5 million
for like-minded candidates and has hopes of doubling that amount in this
election cycle. MoveOn generated a million phone calls and e-mails to
Congress protesting the Iraq war and catalyzed thousands of candlelight
vigils around the world. "Even we were shocked by the power of this," Boyd
said. "We were bowled over."

The entire organization has four paid employees.

Boyd was a featured speaker yesterday at the opening session of a major
gathering of progressive -- the preferred term these days on the political
left -- activists at the Omni Shoreham Hotel. Round-faced, soft-spoken and
bespectacled, Boyd had the standing-room-only crowd in the palm of his
hand even before he started talking. The story of his organization is one
of the few clear successes lately in a party that took a drubbing last
November and faces an uphill battle against a popular president.

As Ellen Malcolm, founder and president of EMILY's List -- the largest PAC
in the country -- put it, these are "dire times" for Democrats.

The Take Back America conference, which continues today and Friday, was
organized to try to raise hopes that President Bush can be beaten next
November, and to convince other Democrats that a vigorously liberal agenda
is the way to do it. Boyd used his group's momentum to argue that there is
plenty of grass-roots support for progressive ideas -- if only Democrats
will have the courage to push them.

"The primary way to build trust is to consistently fight for things that
people care about," Boyd told his audience. Later, in an interview, he
added that progressive Democrats need to present an agenda beyond simple
opposition to the Bush administration. The next big MoveOn project is
designed to develop new ideas from the ground up. "We need to stop playing
defense," he said.

Conference organizers are calling on liberal groups across the country to
cooperate on strategy and coordinate their efforts to "challenge the
radical and destructive agenda of the Bush administration," in the words
of Robert Borosage, director of the Campaign for America's Future.

But the meeting is also designed to rally the left against the Democratic
Party's more centrist elements as the battle heats up to choose a
presidential nominee. Borosage and others object to party strategists who
believe Democrats must moderate their positions on war, taxes, universal
health care and other key issues if they want to win the swing votes that
will decide the 2004 election.

"Those who advise Democrats to tuck their tails and bite their tongues are
simply wrong," Borosage said to a wave of applause.

In response, the party's leading centrist group, the Democratic Leadership
Council, issued a sly welcome to the progressive conferees, proposing that
the rival factions of the party share "that Ben & Jerry's ice cream and
those Newman's organic cookies. Yum."

"We cannot regain the White House," the DLC said, "if we deepen, rather
than rebut, the lingering doubt . . . that too many Americans don't much
trust us to protect them against terrorists and other threats to our
national security. We're not convinced that your panel on 'Next Stages for
the Peace Movement' will reassure the country on this count."

Wes Boyd disagreed. As a newcomer to politics, he doesn't spend much time
rehashing the internecine rivalries that have anguished the Democratic
Party since the rise of the New Left in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He
believes that grass-roots America is ready to support a liberal agenda if
only "someone will get out and lead." Boyd counsels presidential
candidates to spend less time in closed-door meetings with major donors
and more time in direct contact with voters.

The exponential growth of MoveOn.org, Boyd told the conference, is proof
that money and support will flow to politicians willing to stake out
strong and risky positions. "Every time we did something, every time we
showed leadership, our membership went up." The key to winning, he said,
"is: lead, for God's sake."

More than 1,000 people registered for the conference, according to Eric
Hauser, who helped organize the event -- which makes it "the biggest
gathering of progressives in at least 20 years." Today, they will hear
speeches -- live or on videotape -- from seven of the nine Democratic
presidential candidates.

After his speech, Boyd was mobbed by admirers. He had a relaxed way of
occupying the center of attention; more than one listener wondered how
long it would be before the first Wes Boyd-for-High Office campaign.

"That is an amazing concept," he said later. "That is the absolute last
thing I am ever going to do."

 2003 The Washington Post Company