By Steve Peoples, The Stream, (AP) - Last Friday, Maine Democrat Zak Ringelstein wasn’t ready to consider himself a formal member of the Democratic Socialists of America… Three days later, he told The AP that (he) was ready to become the only major-party Senate candidate in the nation to be a dues-paying democratic socialist… The swift evolution is latest evidence of a nationwide surge in the strength and popularity of an organization that, until recently, operated on the fringes of the liberal movement’s farthest left flank.