As Tensions Simmer, Poll Shows Majority of Democrats Want Bold Leftward Shift

[Jim Lane]

223. I would be careful about missing the forest for the trees.

Here's part of what I wrote in #56:

Let's consider this poll in context. It shows the "further to the left" course supported by 52% of Democrats and opposed by 48%. If we were electing someone to office, 52-48 is very different from 48-52. But we're not voting on candidates. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the correct ratio were 52-48 against moving to the left. What matters is that, among Democrats, there is clearly a significant division of opinion. A large number support moving to the left, and a large number oppose that idea. Consider this poll, consider that Bernie Sanders got more than 40% of the votes in the primaries, consider the anecdotal evidence -- if anyone is contending that the "move further left" faction is a noisy minority of 10% or the like, I just can't consider that a credible position.

That's the forest -- that, among Democrats, there is clearly a significant division of opinion.

On DU, sniping at the Harvard-Harris Poll has often deflected attention from the important point. There are many Americans who are opposed to Trump and the GOP agenda. Among those Americans, however, their agreement on broad principles doesn't negate the existence of significant disagreements. For example, we all reject the Republican vision of a complete free market in health care, embodied in the "Repeal and go fuck yourselves" attacks on the ACA. Of the people who reject that vision, though, some favor single payer and some don't.

Of course, it's not two clearly defined factions. If we could interview every registered Democrat in the country about single payer and about raising the federal minimum wage to $15, the results would be strongly correlated but they wouldn't be perfect. Add in more issues and there'd be more untidiness.

As for McGinty, I didn't say that she was conservative in any absolute sense. I said that she's one of the candidates who "defeated more progressive opponents in their primary." That means that, in Pennsylvania, she was "the more conservative alternative" among the Democrats (emphasis added). Even among people who are to the left of Pat Toomey, there's room for some left-right variation.