http://www.theatlantic.com/...
In a classroom in Harlem, the liberal new mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio, appeared with union leaders in support of his plan to raise taxes on incomes higher than $500,000 to fund public pre-kindergarten. "We're asking this of the wealthy," de Blasio said, "because there are too many working parents in this city today" who need help.
At the same time, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was presenting his budget in Albany under a sign that trumpeted: "CUTTING TAXES."
You could hardly get a better illustration of the current tribal divide in the Democratic Party. Call it what you want—liberals versus centrists, populists versus the corporate wing—but these days, there's no doubt there are two different breeds of Democrats, both in elected office and in the activist grassroots. Along with Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, de Blasio has been hyped as the avatar of a new, more boldly progressive Democratic Party that discards the timid moderation advocated by the party's old guard in favor of a frank, take-no-prisoners crusade for higher taxes and bigger government.
I love the fact that de Blasio is pushing this. Win or lose, he is forcing the debate to the left. That is one thing we can learn from the Tea Party. They are not afraid of short term losses. If Cuomo fights to give NYC the authority to raise taxes, it's a win. If he refuses or throws up his hands and points at the GOP Senate, he is exposed. But da Mayor should keep raising a stink about it, unlike BHO.
Many Democratic insiders minimize the party's divide. They note that there's broad ideological agreement on social and cultural issues, from abortion and gay marriage to gun control and immigration. National-security and foreign-policy questions have the power to divide but are no longer litmus tests. Even on economic issues, the party generally speaks with one voice: in favor of universal healthcare, against reducing safety-net programs, for progressive taxation and government-driven economic stimulus. Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress, told me in an email that the Democratic Party just doesn't get hung up on internecine battles these days. "I believe that it's a big-tent party that can and should accommodate centrists and liberals," Tanden said. "That ideological purity has not been a winning strategy for the other side."
But this high-altitude view elides real differences, such as disagreement over how much to raise taxes and on whom, how much to regulate industry, and whether to press not just to preserve but to expand those safety-net programs. (In addition to the Cuomo-de Blasio feud, Warren's signature proposal would increase Social Security benefits, and Obama's push for new free-trade agreements has run into resistance from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.) And the divide isn't so much about issues as tone and tactics. The Warrenites harp on the gap between rich and poor and inveigh against big business; the centrists assure their big corporate donors that Democrats can be business-friendly.
I really don't think we are divided. Whether we should be is another matter. Because of the social progress that has been made under BHO, we have remained mouse like quiet during election years because of a fear of the alternative. I have always thought that under this president, the real winners are Moderate Dems and Moderate Repubs. Both sides have us fighting for social issues and the GOP has their back on the economic front. Must be nice. Progressives raise hell about economic issues in off years, but when our candidates beat the abortion and Supreme Court drum, we dance, myself included.
This is sorta off topic, but I chuckle when I see polls that say 75% of american's support issue X. Yes, but is that the issue that brings them to the polls?
But the Republican analogy becomes misleading when pundits assume that liberals play the same role in the Democratic Party that conservatives do in the GOP. The fact is, the parties are asymmetrical. There are a lot more conservatives than liberals in America. Almost all Republicans consider themselves conservative, whereas less than half of Democrats consider themselves liberal. These two charts from Gallup tell the story.
An overwhelming 70 percent of Republicans are conservatives, a share that has increased since 2000. This fits with the conventional wisdom of a GOP that's steadily become more ideologically pure and less moderate. Meanwhile, just 43 percent of Democrats call themselves liberal. Until 2007, liberals weren't even a plurality of Democrats—more were moderates—and even today, liberals are outnumbered by moderate and conservative Democrats. Note that there are about four times as many conservative Democrats as liberal Republicans. Liberals are increasing—their overall share of the American electorate this year, 23 percent, marked an all-time high in Gallup's polling—but there's a clear imbalance in the way the two parties are ideologically composed.
http://www.gallup.com/...
Everyone knows that even some Liberals hate the label, hence the switch to progressive. Am I wrong about this? Am I too close to it to see clearly?
Activists on the left have periodically tried to stage these sorts of purifying contests, but they have rarely succeeded. Howard Dean's "Democratic wing of the Democratic Party" proved less potent than John Kerry's mainstream appeal in 2004. The populist Democrat of 2008, John Edwards, also didn't become the party's standard-bearer. Also in 2008, in the sixth most Democratic state in the country, Delaware's state treasurer, Jack Markell, ran for governor as a centrist against a liberal lieutenant governor who was endorsed by the state Democratic Party; Markell won. In 2010, liberals and unions teamed up in a massive effort to defeat conservative Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln in a Democratic primary in Arkansas; they spent millions of dollars boosting Bill Halter—and lost. That year also saw a tough Democratic primary between appointed Senator Michael Bennet, a centrist former education-reform-boosting school superintendent, and a liberal state lawmaker backed by the teachers union; Bennet prevailed. (Disclosure: Bennet is the brother of Atlantic editor in chief James Bennet.) Of five candidates endorsed in 2012 congressional primaries by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, four lost.
Liberals' one Tea Party-style coup in recent years was the 2006 Connecticut Senate primary, in which millionaire telecom executive Ned Lamont defeated pro-Iraq War Senator Joe Lieberman. Lieberman, however, went on to win the general election as an independent. (The largely bygone Democratic split over Iraq was also distinct from the current fracture over economics.) Lamont, by the way, tried again: He ran for Connecticut governor in 2010 and lost the Democratic primary.
This dynamic means that compared to Republicans, Democrats are relatively free to antagonize their ideological core supporters. After 34 House Democrats voted against healthcare reform in 2010, progressives vowed revenge, but all 30 anti-Obamacare Democrats who sought reelection won their primaries. Conservative Democrats like former Senators Ben Nelson and Max Baucus drove liberals crazy, but they never faced a primary challenge. The architects of the Democrats' House and Senate electoral strategies, former Representative Rahm Emanuel and Senator Chuck Schumer, built Democratic majorities by recruiting business-friendly centrists to run—and the party bosses hardly ever had a problem getting their favored candidates safely through to the nomination.
Sigh. This is where my Tea Party envy kicks in. No matter how many times they come up short, they keep pressing because they know they are changing/framing the debate. After Lieberman and Blanche Lincoln, we sort of became a glorified debate society. Our pols have to fear us. I have to keep reminding myself how they take us for granted, hence the Schumer tagline. BHO didn't court our support, and neither will Sen/Sec. Clinton. She knows we have no where to and she is well aware that we care about the courts and about the GOP being the greater evil.
While I agree that we don't control the party, we have definitely moved it left on social issues. It helped that the GOP took out most of the Stupak caucus, but the party was moving left even before that. If the day comes that we can defeat two or three "chained CPI" Senators in safe blue states (hello Durbin and Schumer), we will get their attention again. There has to be a balance between us running away with our tails between our legs after Lieberman, and the Tea Party lighting fire to the GOP.
Any ideas?
