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One of the factors to consider is the more fractous nature of the Democratic Party. Despite the platform, candidates are very much on their own to develop and promote their issues and positions. There are significant groups within the party such as the DLC that will support certain views, while others within the party will oppose them.
This is not to say that the Republicans don't have their own divisions, they certainly do, but the Republican Party as a whole has been much more capable of presenting a unified front, if you will, to the voters.
Put 10 Democrats in a room and you will have 10 totally different approaches to an issue. Democrats aren't comfortable with a monolithic party, and so I don't expect this to change any time soon.
Now what does this have to do with Dem candidates going conservative on issues? On one hand, the candidates, like the rest of the party, have their own views. They may agree with 90% of the platform but the 10% they disagree on is likely to be magnified. Lets say a candidate simply doesn't agree on abortion for example, this will likely be the subject of a lot of focus during the campaign and can lead one to think they are a conservative candidate, while in reality they are in agreement with the rest of the platform outside that one issue.
Additionally, the Dem Party still has a number of conservatives in its ranks (this number has begun to increase actually in recent years), while the progressives are gaining a lot of momentum within the party as well. Add in the more corporate DLC and you can see there are a lot of people pulling the party different ways, and pulling candidates different ways as well. Each candidate has to plot their own strategy for their particular situation and consistant with their own beliefs. This leads to a wide variety of candidates running under the (D).
Josh
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