Democrats divided on their path to 2016
By Karen Tumulty and Sean Sullivan December 14 at 7:39 PM
In the six weeks since their repudiation in the midterms, Democrats have seen the opening of fissures within their once-disciplined ranks, marking the start of an internal struggle between now and the 2016 election over the ideological identity and tactical direction of the party.
The tension — shown in high relief during the messy final days of the congressional session — is in some ways a mirror image of the stresses within the Republican Party, which has been divided between its tea party and establishment factions in recent years.
In the case of both parties, the argument pits the more populist, purist elements of the base against the more pragmatic center.
For Democrats, “it is a conflict that was looking for an occasion,” said William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, who was a policy adviser to former President Bill Clinton. “The election provided the occasion.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/democrats-divided-on-their-path-to-2016/2014/12/14/5ff3ba68-82fd-11e4-9f38-95a187e4c1f7_story.html
