Progressive candidates make progress on defining progressivism
Progressive. Progressive. Progressive.
Thursday night’s Democratic debate was dominated by one word and a fight between two candidates about what “progressive” means and who best represents its definition.
Over the course of two hours, the word “progressive” was uttered by the two Democratic presidential hopefuls 19 times. Hillary Clinton far outscored Bernie Sanders in number of uses, 16 to 3, according to a Yahoo News review of a transcript of the debate.
In one answer early on, Clinton used the word “progressive” nine times.
“I am a progressive who gets things done. And the root of that word, progressive is ‘progress.’ But I’ve heard Sen. Sanders’ comments, and it’s really caused me to wonder who’s left in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. Under his definition, President Obama is not progressive because he took donations from Wall Street; Vice President Biden is not progressive because he supported Keystone,” Clinton said immediately before giving a shout-out to New Hampshire’s Democratic senator. “Sen. [Jeanne] Shaheen is not progressive because she supports the trade pact.
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“Even the late, great Sen. Paul Wellstone would not fit this definition,” she added, invoking the Defense of Marriage Act, “because he voted for DOMA.
“You know, we have differences and, honestly, I think we should be talking about what we want to do for the country. But if we’re going to get into labels, I don’t think it was particularly progressive to vote against the Brady Bill five times,” Clinton continued. “I don’t think it was progressive to vote to give gun makers and sellers immunity. I don’t think it was progressive to vote against Ted Kennedy’s immigration reform. So we could go back and forth like this, but the fact is most people watching tonight want to know what we’ve done and what we will do.”
It’s unclear how much voters will be swayed by a semantic argument over “progressivism,” but it was apparent that Clinton was trying to make inroads with voters in the Granite State against Sanders, who according to latest polling is up 20 points heading into Tuesday’s primary. One of the cornerstones of Sanders’ appeal, especially with young voters, is his singular focus on economic equality issues and his self-definition as a revolutionary Democratic socialist.
The mini-debate on the word progressive felt very forced in the overall context of the larger debate, which touched on topics like the death penalty and Wall Street regulation in a more substantive way. And the trading of barbs on stage was an extension of a protracted Twitter fight earlier between @HillaryClinton and @BernieSanders, which likely got more attention from the Beltway chattering class than it did from actual voters in states where ballots will be cast in the coming weeks.
One of Sanders’ “progressive” mentions was almost an exact repeat of a talking point his social media team posted on Twitter Wednesday. “All that I said was there’s nothing wrong with being a moderate,” Sanders said to Clinton on stage Thursday, arguing that you can’t be both a moderate and a progressive at the same time.
Of course, the debate was about much more than who could say “progressive” the most, and the two candidates quickly turned to another issue — who was most “establishment.”
(Cover tile photo combination: Photos by Mike Segar/Reuters)
