The Democratic Party's Civil War Is Just Getting Started [View all]

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The liberal wing of the Democratic Party is gaining strength, and asserting its power.

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When Hillary Clinton formally claims the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination this summer in Philadelphia, she will inherit a party in the throes of a revolution — one in which her side seems likely to lose in the long term.

The upheaval has been decades in the making, as the party has evolved from choosing relative centrist nominees such as Bill Clinton, Al Gore and John Kerry over more liberal contenders, to Barack Obama, who positioned himself to the left of Hillary Clinton in 2008. Now, even while Clinton appears set to win the Democratic nomination this year, she has faced an unexpectedly difficult challenge from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the farthest-left Democratic candidate to seriously vie for the nomination in decades.

Around the country, signs are mounting that the more liberal wing of the Democratic Party is gaining strength, and asserting its power. Through April, Sanders, before this race a back-bench senator with little real political power, had raised more money for his presidential contest than the vaunted Clinton machine. Clinton herself has moved to the left, in an effort to head off Sanders.

http://fortune.com/2016/05/25/the-democratic-partys-civil-war-is-just-getting-started/?xid=soc_socialflow_twitter_FORTUNE