BOTH MODERATE & LIBERAL DEMS NEED TO STICK TOGETHER

… Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the super liberal Rep. from New York

Is there a fracture between moderates and liberals in the Democratic Party?

Several Democratic presidential candidates, including many of the early entrants, have endorsed what were formerly, only liberal policies, including a Medicare-for-All health plan, and the “Green New Deal” to combat climate change.  Recently, however, some prospective candidates have backed off and are offering a more moderate alternative vision.

On the super liberal front, in a closed-door meeting of House Democrats, the newly elected Representative, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said that some of her colleagues could find themselves “on a list” of possible primary election targets.  This was offered up after some Democratic Reps had voted for a Republican amendment requiring that undocumented immigrants, who try to buy guns, be reported to the US, I.C.E. Customs Team.

However, upon hearing this, the moderates’ concerns came to a head when this newest liberal Democratic star made this statement of developing a “Nixonian type” list which would threaten those Democratic colleagues who would not toe the liberal line.

This kind of talk within the new Democratic Party is raising the warning of a fracture in the party between moderate and liberal purists, which is similar to the long-standing divide today within the Republican Party.

Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), a co-chairman of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, said he has confronted party leaders about such threats, which have also come from the Justice Democrats.  This is a liberal group that had actually backed Ocasio-Cortez’s primary campaign.

“Being unified means ensuring that Democrats aren’t primary-ing any other sitting Democrats,” Gott­heimer said.  “It is not okay to put any Democratic Representative on a list for being primaried.  We need to have a big tent in our party or we won’t keep the House or have a chance to win the White House.”

Some have warned that imposing tests could lead to a Democratic version of the conservative Tea Party revolt that had split the GOP in recent years.  That surge has brought Republicans new energy and new voters, but it’s also cost the GOP some congressional races and legislative victories.

Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO), who is still considering a presidential run, said US politics needs to return to a more civil place.  He referred to the House Freedom Caucus, a group of purist Republicans that often opposes legislative compromises.  “We don’t have to settle for disgraceful politics. We don’t have to settle for being as terrible as Donald Trump,”  Bennet said during a visit to Iowa. “We don’t have to settle for Freedom Caucus tactics.  Those guys are tyrants. We don’t have to accept that.”

Liberal Democrats, including many new to Capitol Hill or national politics, argue that the party has been too timid, caving to Republican pressure and failing to inspire voters with today’s necessary calls for sweeping change in Washington. The surge of new voters in the midterm elections, they say, shows the excitement and support generated by these proposals.

However, the centrists Democrats counter that these liberal ideas and candidates have more power on-line and among the grass roots, than they do at the ballot box.  They say these passions will probably fade over coming months, both in Congress and in the presidential campaign.

John Anzalone, an Alabama-based Democratic pollster, said the idea that the party’s primary voters are enthusiastically liberal is not based on real data.  “There is, without a doubt, a myth that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez somehow represents the narrative of Democratic primary voters in the country,” Anzalone said. “But almost half of them identify themselves as moderates or even conservative.”

That appears to be borne out by the midterms, when less-ideological candidates won when facing purist opponents. Thirty-three of the 40 GOP seats that Democrats picked up were won by candidates who had been endorsed by the moderate NewDem PAC.

A recent Gallup poll found a pragmatic streak in the party: 54% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents wanted the party to become “more moderate,” while only 41% wanted it to be more liberal.

That contrasted with the Republicans and their allies, 57% of whom wanted a more conservative GOP.

The centrists do not argue that the ideologues are wrong, but that "purity" comes at the price of progress.  That lesson, said Matt Bennett, a spokesman for the moderate think tank Third Way, is now on display in the House, which had held that blockbuster public hearing featuring Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, and that passed the first significant gun-control bill in a generation.

“Without the people who flipped seats, there is no Speaker Pelosi, there is no Michael Cohen hearing, there is no background-check bill,  there is only misery and Republican rule,” he said. “No one in the Democratic Party should be doing anything to jeopardize those seats. No one.”

For her part, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has been treading carefully.  She has side-lined the most sweeping liberal proposals.  She never mentions a Trump impeachment and she schedules weekly meetings to bring together the leaders of the moderate and liberal factions.

However, a recent meeting threatened to open a new breach.  After 26 Democratic moderates joined with Republicans to pass an amendment on a key gun-control bill, Pelosi said they should show more “courage” on politically sensitive votes. That struck some as tone deaf, as did Ocasio-Cortez’s comments about primary challenges.  Ocasio-Cortez in a tweet said she was not making threats but warning that the Democratic defectors “were inadvertently making a list of targets for the GOP and for progressive advocates” by any voting with Republicans.

This eruption has followed weeks of growing tension between different wings of the party.  The freshmen who were elected on platforms of cleaning up big-money politics and fixing the heath-care system.  These Reps have found themselves voting on, and answering for, a different set of issues, and some are feeling the heat from their constituents.  “A lot of people are complaining and expressing concerns about the Democratic Party being portrayed as socialist, or certain voices being louder than others,” said Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN), who unseated a GOP incumbent in a suburban Minneapolis district.

The new liberal energy in the House is coming from candidates, including Ocasio-Cortez, who captured districts that generally favor Democrats.  Some party strategists say liberal activists must recognize that their message absolutely would not work in those conservative areas.  “People would be wise to remember that, by definition, we have the House majority because people flipped seats from red to blue,” said Tyler Law.  He is a Democratic consultant who helped direct the party’s communications efforts in 2018. “Seats that went from blue to blue did not deliver the majority.”

The Democratic presidential primary contest has however, been dominated by candidates pushing sweeping liberal policies.  But several prospective candidates have begun warning against an overly aggressive liberal platform.

At a local house party last month in Waterloo, Iowa, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), who was exploring a run for the White House, was confronted by an activist who demanded that he support Medicare-for-all, rather than his current proposal to lower the age of Medicare eligibility.  Brown said that’s not realistic. “My ideology says universal coverage today, just like yours does, but I want to make people’s lives better,” Brown responded, as he stood near the fireplace in a packed living room. “I know Congress won’t pass Medicare-for-All.”

Over the coming weeks, a second wave of candidates could adopt a line closer to Sherrod Brown’s.  Montana Gov. Steve Bullock; former Colorado governor John Hickenlooper; former New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, they all have been preparing campaigns that would promise an ability to win over Trump voters.  Each has been crafting campaign plans based on the polling data that shows a giant appetite among Democratic-leaning voters for anyone who can defeat Trump, even if they do not support to strict liberal policies

“You can be very progressive, liberal and left and also want to elect people to get things done,” said Anna Greenberg.  Greenberg is a Democratic pollster who is advising Hickenlooper. “Primary voters are very comfortable holding both of those things at the same time. They don’t see it as either-or.”

This is very true.  I have heard a number of young progressive voters that say, “I agree with Medicare-for-All, but I know it will take time to get there, one–step–at-a–time.

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In the new House, moderates like Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-OR.) have been speaking up more about the merits of their approach, which tends to attract smaller audiences on Instagram and Twitter.  “There are a lot of people that suck up a lot of oxygen,” Schrader said. “And then there’s the people that do the work. . . . We’re the ones who actually govern and make things happen. And I think we’re content with that.”

I guess that this is where I am as well.  It’s fun to listen to the fire-brands of those like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  I do agree that I would support a number of the things that she supports.  But I am also a realist and I know they aren’t going to occur overnight.  History has shown that he things that last are those that start small and grow with time and knowledge.  The Obamacare / ACA plan was not very popular when it was introduced, but today there would be a huge outcry if it were taken away.

That’s the way a democracy works.  Today, under Donald Trump as the leader, we are not living in a democracy. 

That needs to change.

Copyright G. Ater 2019