![]() There is an age element to this debate, but the leading figures of the movement that represents younger people are in their 70’s (Warren and Sanders) and Buttigieg is aligned with the older movement even though he is just 38. Politicians change their positions all the time, so it’s hard to suggest that many of them are anchored to some kind of set ideology. centrist/moderate/center-left (Biden, Pelosi) tells us something, but it’s not quite right either. Liberal/leftist/progressive (Booker, Sanders) v. The candidates often describe their differences in terms of policies, but Biden and Sanders spent a year arguing about Medicare-for-All, even though both of them know that policy has virtually no chance of passing anytime soon. But that’s not a great description-Booker, not McGrath is an elected official after all, Sanders has been in politics his entire adult life. The political media often casts this as a fight between the establishment (Biden, Pelosi, McGrath) and the anti-establishment (Booker, Sanders, Warren). (Did you know Biden supports the idea of a commission to study reparations? )īut I think it’s important to really break down what the two sides are really arguing about. ![]() Biden may be an older white man who portrays himself as a moderate, but his actual policy proposals are well to the left of what Barack Obama ran on in 2008 and on some issues to the left of how Hillary Clinton ran in 2016. They are effectively forcing the Biden-Pelosi bloc to move left on issue after issue, because a lot of Democratic voters like what they are hearing from Sanders and Warren. But the Sanders-Warren coalition is having successes too. The Biden-Pelosi bloc is winning overall in my view-Biden is the Democratic presidential nominee, Pelosi controls the House, candidates like McGrath are generally defeating candidates like Booker in key races. It pits figures like Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, James Clyburn, McGrath and Nancy Pelosi against people like Booker, Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. You know the general parameters of this debate. So we are nearing the end of essentially a two-year intraparty debate among Democratic activists, party officials and ultimately voters that really launched with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s upset victory in a New York City-area congressional district over incumbent Democrat Joe Crowley. The Charles Booker-Amy McGrath race was one of the final major primaries of 2020.
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