Watch out, Washington: The liberals are coming.

Tomorrow kicks off the fifth annual Take Back America conference in Washington -- a gathering of groups across the progressive spectrum aimed at planning and coordinating their efforts heading into the November election and beyond.

"We are headed to what has the potential to be a sea-change election, not just a change election," said Bob Borosage, co-director of the Campaign for America's Future and one of the founders of the conference.

Sensing an opportunity not only to regain the White House but also to secure significant majorities in Congress to push a progressive agenda, Borosage and Roger Hickey, who is also affiliated with the Campaign for America's Future, see the conference as a chance for the ideological left to let its voice be heard.

More than 2,000 people will attend the gathering, to be held, as was its ideological alter ego, the Conservative Political Action Conference, at the Omni Shoreham Hotel.

"This is the last chance to compare notes and coordinate what is going to be a massive undertaking," Hickey said.

That word "coordination" is something rather new in the progressive movement, which, Borosage and Hickey acknowledged, long was symbolized by a series of "silos" in which each individual group operated.

That "go it alone" approach provided a stark contrast to the well-organized and well-funded conservative movement -- whose cohesion was long admired, privately, by Democratic operatives hoping to build their own independent repository of money, message and electoral muscle.

"After [Bill] Clinton got elected, it was every group for themselves," Hickey said of progressives.

No longer, he and Borosage insisted, pointing to the rapid growth of the Take Back America conference from a "quiet policy conference" (in the words of Borosage) to a rallying point for the American left. "We exploded it because we thought it was important to bring various tribes of the progressive movement together and show their strength," Borosage said.

He added that, heading toward November, "there is a hell of a lot of coordination going on leading up to the election and planning for after the election."

The growth of the conference has mirrored a broader expansion of progressive influence within the Democratic establishment, including in the presidential race, where the candidates have adopted policies that have been hallmarks of the left, such as universal health care, energy independence and a removal of American troops from Iraq, Borosage said.

He described Sens. Barack Obama (Ill.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) as "two relatively moderate candidates" (news to many Republicans, perhaps) who have gradually moved to the ideological left during the campaign. Why? "That's partly a response to conditions and partly a response to the base of the party and its demands," he said.

Hickey was even more blunt, insisting that progressives "had to teach [the party establishment] every step of the way" on issues such as Social Security, the war in Iraq and universal health care. "Every single victory has emboldened them," he said.

While Borosage and Hickey clearly see this week's conference as a chance to highlight the ascendancy of progressive politics in America, they also caution that the newfound power of the left shouldn't cause Democrats to rest easy.

Democrats "learned in this last election that if they get a majority, they better deliver on something," Hickey said. "If they really win a landslide, they really have to deliver."

2010 N.Y. Governor's Race Opens Up

Eliot L. Spitzer's departure as New York governor tomorrow marks the end of one man's political career, while simultaneously kicking off the 2010 governor's race in the Empire State.

Lt. Gov. David A. Paterson will ascend to the top job for the remainder of his fellow Democrat's term. Paterson has made no secret in the past that it is a Senate seat he truly covets -- which raises the question of whether he will seek a full gubernatorial term in 2010.

In case he doesn't, and perhaps even if he does, a crowd of other Democrats are being mentioned for the race.

That list was led by Sen. Charles E. Schumer, who had very publicly mulled a gubernatorial bid in 2006 before deciding to remain in Washington and head the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. But a spokesman for Schumer confirmed for the Fix late last week that the senator has ruled out a 2010 gubernatorial bid.

That decision ensures that Andrew M. Cuomo, who serves as New York's attorney general, will be the subject of much speculation. For Cuomo, the son of former New York governor Mario Cuomo, a run for governor would be a political comeback of sorts. In 2002, after he had served in the Clinton administration as secretary of housing and urban development, Cuomo began as the favorite for the Democratic nomination for governor but was out-campaigned by state Comptroller Carl McCall and eventually left the race before a vote was cast.

The Republican field is far more open. The big name is Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York and failed presidential candidate. He has not actively entertained the prospect, nor has he foreclosed the possibility. Other names mentioned on the Republican side include Rep. Vito J. Fossella and former congressman Rick Lazio, who was on the losing end of a Senate race against Hillary Clinton in 2000.

And then, of course, there is Michael R. Bloomberg, the former Republican and current Independent mayor of New York. Like Giuliani, he has been noncommittal.

While 36 governorships will be in contention in the 2010 election, no race is likely to be more high-profile than this one -- one of the many legacies of Spitzer's rapid rise and cataclysmic fall.