The hard left behind retire-Feinstein drive california focus

Forget about both sexism and ageism as prime forces behind the highly vocal movement pressuring longtime Democratic U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein to retire early from the seat she has held since 1990.

Sure, these factors are present in varying degrees. So is the fact that Feinstein was absent from the Senate more than two months this spring, recovering from a painfully severe case of shingles. She returned just this week.

But the actual root purpose of this months-long campaign is an effort by the relentlessly uncompromising hard left of the California Democratic Party to take over a key post it could not win at the ballot box.