Bloom_May_14

○ The Democratic Party gets

more progressive without

tearing itself apart

During the irst years of the Obama presidency,

the Republican Party found itself out of power in

Washington—and went to war with itself. Right-wing

insurgents, mobilized under the Tea Party banner,

brought out the knives against fellow Republicans

deemed insuiciently conservative, particularly in

party primaries and often with disastrous efect.

Angry voters nominated a succession of hard-right

candidates who took down more electable incum-

bents, inhibiting the party’s eforts to win back the

Senate for six years even as it won control of the

House in 2010.

Democrats, likewise shut out of power in the

early years of the Trump presidency, face a sim-

ilarly rebellious activist lank that risks pulling

their party to an unelectable extreme by defeating

Establishment-friendly candidates. But so far the

left-wing “resistance” hasn’t sparked an intraparty

civil war so much as a genteel cofee-table discus-

sion. During the irst big wave of primaries this

month, Democratic centrists did something their

GOP counterparts often couldn’t during the Obama

years: They survived. Instead of nominating radi-

cal outsiders, voters mostly went with moderate

incumbents. Putting of any signiicant discussion

about what the party truly stands for is just ine for

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who on May 8

said at an event in Washington, “Just win baby.”

That evening, two of the Senate’s most con-

servative Democrats—West Virginia’s Joe Manchin

and Indiana’s Joe Donnelly—coasted to renomi-

nation. Manchin crushed his liberal challenger

by 40 points, while Donnelly ran unopposed.

Both have angered the left by casting numerous

votes in favor of Trump’s agenda. In the last year,

Democrats nominated other moderates, such as

Jon Ossof (who lost a Georgia House race), Conor

Lamb (who won in Pennsylvania’s House special

election), and Doug Jones, who pulled of an

CONTENTS

○ James Comey talks

about Trump, Giuliani,

and leadership

○ Women are running

for Congress in record

numbers

May 14, 2018

Edited by

Matthew Philips and

Jillian Goodman

Businessweek.com

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