Newenglanddeac
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Centrist Democrats push back against party’s liberal surge
“There is, without a doubt, a myth that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez somehow represents the narrative of Democratic primary voters in the country,” Anzalone said. “Almost half of them identify themselves as moderates or conservative.”
That appears to be at least somewhat borne out by the midterms, when less-ideological candidates often 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 November Gallup poll found a pragmatic streak in the party — 54 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents wanted the party to become “more moderate,” while only 41 percent wanted it to be more liberal. That contrasted with the Republicans and their allies, 57 percent of whom wanted a more conservative party.
The centrists do not necessarily 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 just this week held a blockbuster hearing featuring Trump’s former personal lawyer and 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.”
Full: https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...m=.cd69e449e6bf#click=https://t.co/zzpvrNKKUe
“There is, without a doubt, a myth that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez somehow represents the narrative of Democratic primary voters in the country,” Anzalone said. “Almost half of them identify themselves as moderates or conservative.”
That appears to be at least somewhat borne out by the midterms, when less-ideological candidates often 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 November Gallup poll found a pragmatic streak in the party — 54 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents wanted the party to become “more moderate,” while only 41 percent wanted it to be more liberal. That contrasted with the Republicans and their allies, 57 percent of whom wanted a more conservative party.
The centrists do not necessarily 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 just this week held a blockbuster hearing featuring Trump’s former personal lawyer and 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.”
Full: https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...m=.cd69e449e6bf#click=https://t.co/zzpvrNKKUe
