Jimmy Carter lost the presidency after battling progressives from his own party. His policy director doesn’t want to see that happen again.
In 1968, Richard Nixon exploited a rift between the main Democratic candidates and won the presidential election. In 1980, Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter after a contentious Democratic convention left the party scarred. The scenario could repeat itself in 2020, Carter’s policy director says, if Democrats don’t reign in their increasingly vocal progressive wing.
“Both times, I watched pressure from the party’s liberal wing tear the party apart and bring down a Democratic presidential candidate,” Stuart E. Eizenstat, who was also research director for Hubert Humphrey’s 1968 campaign, wrote in Politico on Saturday. “Both times, the Republicans took the White House. Both times, liberal dreams were shattered. Today, I fear it could all be happening again.”
At this early stage of the 2020 race, it has largely been the most progressive candidates in the Democratic field whose policy proposals have gotten the most attention. Their seemingly outsize influence on the party and media coverage is indicative of a broader trend: the party as a whole has moved to the left.
For instance, last week Sen. Elizabeth Warren proposed that the government break up tech giants that sell goods in marketplaces they also own. She then flew to a tech conference of all places, the South by Southwest festival in Austin, and boldly explained the proposal to big tech employees.
Warren has also proposed a “wealth tax,” which would put a 2 percent levy on Americans with assets above $50 million. Then there’s Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has proposed free tuition and “Medicare for all.” At the same time, newly elected Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who isn’t running but has dominated the Democratic narrative on social media, introduced the Green New Deal and has recently made comments such as, “capitalism is irredeemable.”
There is evidence in the polls for a longer-term shift as well. The number of Democrats who call themselves “liberal” more than doubled from 25 percent in 1994 to 51 percent in 2018, according to a Gallup poll.
The question more moderate party members are is asking is whether this shift could again cause a bruising rift within the party, depriving Democrats of an opportunity to present a united front against Trump, who has the advantages of being an incumbent and presiding over a strong economy.
“Will the liberal wing this time around realize the damage a similar split will do to Democratic chances of regaining the White House?” Eizenstat asked. “Maximalist ideology is a prescription for division and defeat.”
Carter himself warned Democrats last year not to “move to a very liberal program, like universal health care.”
“Independents need to know they can invest their vote in the Democratic Party,” he said.
The warnings have come from many directions. Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth said, “you can’t win the White House without the midwest and I don’t think you can go too far to the left and still win the Midwest.”
Washington Post columnist Max Boot wrote in January that “Democrats need to be careful.”
“They have a heaven-sent opportunity to win back the White House and Senate in 2020 and become the majority party for a generation to come,” he said. “This is an opportunity they can easily squander if they turn themselves into the far-left caricatures that Trump and Fox News would like them to become.”
Even James Comey has chimed in. “Democrats, please, please don’t lose your minds and rush to the socialist left,” he wrote on Twitter. “America’s great middle wants sensible, balanced, ethical leadership.”
Democrats don’t need to rely on last century’s elections as potential indicators of what could happen in 2020; they can also look to November’s midterm elections. While progressive lawmakers like Ocasio-Cortez have made a lot of noise since taking office, many of the Democrats who won in key House and gubernatorial races last year were, in fact, moderate.
“The overwhelming majority of seats we picked up were by center-left candidates representing more centrist-type districts,” Rep. Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania told The New York Times.
Despite the vocal progressive wing, moderate candidates are starting to get more attention. Beto O’Rourke called for unity over divisiveness during his first weekend of campaigning, in which he received significant media coverage. When former Colorado governor John Hickenlooper declared last week, he drew a distinction between himself and “dreamers in Washington.” And if former vice president Jose Biden decides to run, he’d be a strong moderate candidate who can likely serve as a counterweight to Sanders and Warren.
To be sure, there’s some data-based evidence that a more liberal candidate might not hold the Democrats back. A 2016 study by Vanderbilt political scientist Larry Bartels looked at data from nine presidential elections and found that the policy positions of presidential candidates were actually as extreme, if not more, than their partisan bases.
“There is scarcely any penalty for being extreme.” George Washington University political scientist John Sides wrote about the study. “To put it bluntly: Candidates may be extreme because they can get away with it.”
And there certainly are plenty of Democrats who disagree that a more liberal agenda will make them less likely to defeat Trump next year.
“The people who write op-eds and stroke their chins and tell us how to win,” said Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii, “are the people who have been getting it wrong for almost two decades now.”
