While recovering from their mauling in the midterm elections last month, Democrats are divided over what economic message they should be pushing ahead of the presidential election in 2016, according to
The Wall Street Journal.
The most liberal members of the party are rallying behind Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and her emphasis on income equality, while more moderate members dismiss her message, believing it will only result in more pain at the polling booths.
Instead they are calling for policies that will lead to more economic growth and hoping that presumed presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton will end up getting behind their cause, says the Journal.
"In a world where there are more self-described conservatives than there are self-described liberals, is having a campaign that only tries to win by appealing to your base the right strategy?" asked Delaware’s Democratic Gov. Jack Markell. "I would argue it’s not."
Markell pointed out to the Journal that the next Democratic nominee must reach independents as well as "some Republicans," while adding, "In my mind, an agenda around [economic] growth is the most likely message to do that."
In recent weeks, Warren has become a catalyst for progressives in the party as she pushes her position that the country should be curtailing corporate power and curbing the amount of wealth controlled by the nation’s richest individuals, says the newspaper.
To that end, she won many admirers in the party last week and enhanced her populist hero status when
her anti-Wall Street faction nearly derailed the bipartisan $1.1 trillion spending bill in the House.
She also highlighted her position as the leading liberal in Congress when she led the opposition to the White House’s choice of banker Antonio Weiss for a leading post at the Treasury Department, which she claimed could result in Wall Street wielding undue influence on financial policy.
Although Warren maintained earlier this week that she’s "not running" for the White House, there are many progressives in the party who hope she changes her mind.
Clinton is fully expected to announce in the coming months that she will be a contender in 2016.
The only real question that hangs over her head is whether she’ll support a populist policy of income equality or the more moderate stance of economic growth, reported the Journal, noting that historically the former first lady has always favored the second course.
"While all Democrats say they want to foster a growing economy, the two wings of the party are at odds over which points should be most central to their message," writes the paper’s Peter Nicholas.
He said that the liberals and moderates in the party have "largely minimized differences and kept a united front" for the past six years while facing increasing Republican attacks on President Barack Obama’s policies.
"But the uneasy alliance has become strained after the midterm elections, in which the party suffered deep losses," Nicholas said. "A sign of the split has stepped-up calls for Ms. Warren to jump in the presidential race."