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Barack Obama is right to warn Democrats about 'circular firing squads'

By Clarence Page, Tribune Content Agency on

With more than a dozen Democratic candidates in the race -- and Biden likely to join them -- we already can see signs of Democrats turning on one another.

Biden has come under fire in this #MeToo era for his hands-on style of relating to men and women at photo ops and other public occasions. He promised to show more restraint but has rankled some by joking about it to an approving, mostly male, audience of union members. At the same time, other Democrats have pushed back against the criticism, saying Biden's alleged offenses pale in comparison with Trump's taped vulgar boasts of grabbing women -- and then winning the Electoral College anyway.

But can Democrats or any other party afford to police its candidates so punitively with standards of so-called political correctness that seem constantly to be in flux? It is a worthy and even necessary topic for vigorous and even heated debate and discussion. But in the end, as Obama used to say on the campaign trail, we should be able to disagree without being disagreeable.

More problematic are the bold moves by the new wave of congressional progressives, particularly the rising star Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. She's too young to run for president, but the obsessive media coverage of her, particularly by conservative outlets, makes it hard for some people to know that.

She has been accused of inviting primary challenges of centrist Democratic incumbents who have not been progressive enough to suit left-wing tastes. The tea party employed that strategy to push congressional Republicans into persistent gridlock with Democrats.

 

Using that strategy to help progressives risks abandoning Democratic incumbents in the 206 counties that voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012 before voting for Trump in 2016. Persuadable voters in those swing districts hold the key to future Democratic presidential victories, if the party follows Obama's advice: Target the problems that are facing voters, not their ideology.

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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)


(c) 2019 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

 

 

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