Centrist Dems begin pushback against liberals
Some fear Sanders’ message will get tuned out by heartland voters
WASHINGTON — The highprofile stars of the Democratic Party’s populist wing have steered the agenda their way on Capitol Hill this year, but the fight over the party’s direction is far from settled.
As the party faces great expectations of big gains in the 2018 midterms, Democratic centrists are increasingly worried that the disproportionate share of attention shown to Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and the agenda pushed by his anti-establishment allies will do more harm than good.
That direction, the thinking goes, will energize liberals in places that Democrats are already winning by big margins. But it might drive away the voters needed to win inland races that will shape the House majority and determine which governors and state legislators are in charge of redrawing federal and state legislative districts early next decade.
Enter a group called New Democracy, a combination think tank and super PAC trying to reimagine the party’s brand in regions where Democrats have suffered deep losses.
Leaders of the group want to focus on rebuilding in states where, during the Obama presidency, Democrats lost nearly 1,000 legislative seats and more than a dozen governor’s mansions.
“Our most important work will be done outside of Washington,” Will Marshall, founder of New Democracy, said in an interview.
The effort is publicly being labeled as “supplemental” to the emerging agenda being crafted on Capitol Hill, including the highly populist “Better Deal” proposal touted by party leaders in the House and Senate last month. But the new group’s leaders do not see that agenda, including a push for lower prescription-drug prices, as particularly helpful to Democrats in exurban districts or key Midwestern states where President Trump won last year.
“That is an accurate reflection of many Democrats who represent deep blue districts. But it has limited appeal beyond the coasts,” Marshall said.
Some centrists fear this populist message will get tuned out by heartland voters if it is accompanied by the party’s increasing embrace of staunch liberal positions on cultural matters, from abortion rights to transgender issues.
New Democracy is taking shape under the failure of another Clinton — Hillary — whose loss to Trump helped solidify the already growing divide between Democrats and voters beyond large urban centers. Several dozen Democrats have signed on with New Democracy, including Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto and Rep. Stephanie Murphy, Fla., a freshman rising star.
The two Democratic wings could be headed for a fierce clash over what the party needs to stand for in the wake of the stunning 2016 defeat. Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and other liberals have been making gains in getting congressional Democrats to support ideas such as a $15-an-hour minimum wage, some form of free college and demanding a full-frontal assault on big banks and big corporations.
The early portions of the “Better Deal” agenda tilt in the populist direction, with calls for stronger antitrust regulations and its tough talk on trade deals. Their belief is that white, workingclass voters — millions of whom voted for Barack Obama but then switched to Trump — felt left behind in an economy with fewer manufacturing plants and those jobs went offshore or disappeared through automation.
Marshall and other Democrats fear that the populist tone is built around a negative message of casting blame. Combine that negative tone with what critics say is a cultural elitism among urban liberals on social issues, and the centrist wing feels that voters in the heartland simply do not embrace the Democratic message anymore.
“The party’s gotten a little too comfortable with its urban and coastal strongholds,” Marshall said.
The first big public event for New Democracy will come at an October summit hosted by Vilsack, who grew increasingly disenchanted last year with what he felt was the Clinton campaign’s unwillingness to court rural voters.
It remains to be seen how much efforts like New Democracy really will supplement the party’s efforts to reach new voters — and how much of this turns into a deep fight with the liberal wing.