Democrats revise past positions for campaign

May 5, 2019, 12:00 UTC

By Benjy Sarlin

The Democratic presidential candidates have so far sought to distinguish themselves with bright new policy proposals. Less celebrated, but perhaps also revealing, are the positions they have taken in the past and that they are now fleeing.

While candidates seek to find their place in the overcrowded primary and deal with a left-wing party electorate, many are massaging or completely overthrowing the old positions – and sometimes even apologize for parts of their record that have not aged well.

Although Joe Biden's long career in the national spotlight presents unique challenges, almost all candidates had to recalibrate their positions, regardless of their age, ideology or mandate.

Even the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg, who largely builds his national platform from scratch, is not immune. In April, he announced that he would no longer take donations from lobbyists and paid more than $ 30,000 in contributions, catching up with a recent trend in Democratic politics that militants claim a tougher stance on money. money in politics.

"It takes a bit of tact and delicacy, but people are trying to get acquainted with the current policy of the Democratic Party," said Jim Manley, longtime assistant to former Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev.

Although such adjustments are not unusual in the presidential primaries, they are also minor adjustments to President Donald Trump, who often flips positions with little or no explanation. But the specific way candidates change at each cycle says a lot about the direction of a party.

Any lotta revamping going on

Crime and sanctions are an area in which a number of candidates have corrected their positions and proposals.

Biden recently relaxed his criminal record, stating in front of an audience at an event in the honor of Martin Luther King Jr. that he had committed "a grave mistake" in serving the Senate by supporting heavier penalties for some drug-related crimes, including: tougher penalties for crack and cocaine powder.

Its substance abuse sentencing movement is part of a broader reassessment of the problem: Democrats are now more concerned about mass incarceration and racial disparities in the system. of justice.

This change also affected other candidates. Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Was questioned during the election campaign about his vote on Biden's 1994 crime bill. Sanders pointed out that he had criticized the focus on incarceration at the time, but explained that he was in favor because it included provisions on the control of firearms and the fight against domestic violence that he favored.

Senator Kamala Harris, D-Calif., Belongs to a later generation who was more accustomed to the criticism of criminal justice reform advocates, but also described some parts of her criminal record. Harris said Pod Save America Last month, a California law inspired by his prosecutor's policy of threatening the prosecution of parents of abandoned children had "unintended consequences" when other localities used it to arrest and accuse offenders. she had not done.

"I regret that this happened and the thought that everything I did could have led to it, because it was certainly not the intention," she said.

Jess McIntosh, Democratic strategist and former collaborator of Hillary Clinton's campaign in 2016, said voters could be more understanding in cases where elected Democrats, as well as their constituents, have progressively evolved from one party to another. consensus on one question to the other.

"Almost all the Democrats who were in the public service in the 1990s explained and apologized about criminal justice reform," said McIntosh. "Same the beginnings and the equality of marriage."

This could include issues such as the legalization of marijuana, which went from a marginal position when President Barack Obama took office in 2009 to almost no controversy today, with polls showing support widespread in his favor.

The former Colorado governor and Democratic presidential candidate, John Hickenlooper, would better embody this change: he strongly opposed a 2012 ballot initiative that made his state the first to legalize cannabis for recreational purposes. But in 2019, he had long been open to this idea, telling a CNN town hall that Colorado 's approach was "way better than the old system in which we had sent millions of kids in prison, most of them of different color ".

For its part, Harris has approved federal legalization after having previously opposed it at the state level.

While the general trend is to align candidates on the left flank of the party, post-conflict issue, there is one example in which some candidates have returned to the center: single-payer health care.

The former representative, Beto O. Rourke, supported a government-run system, incorporated into the bill "Medicare for All" ("Medicare for All") during his Texas Senate trip last year, which would effectively eliminate private insurance. But in March, after being engaged in the presidential campaign, he said that he had changed his mind and that he was now arguing for legislation that would add a Medicare-like option to compete with private insurance, not to abolish it. O 'Rourke acknowledged that many people like their health care insurance provided by their employer.

Although Mr. O. Rourke is the only hope for the time being to explicitly return to his position in the health sector in 2020, several candidates who have signed on to Sanders' single payer bill have put the bill into effect. focus on progressive approaches that would not include the ban on private insurance.

Any policy is local. Until it is not.

Several candidates are also trying to evade previous positions that conflicted with the national party but were aligned with local voters, interest groups, or district or state industries that were in conflict with the state. they represented in Congress.

Senator Cory Booker, DN.J., opposed a Democratic bill two years ago authorizing imports of cheaper drugs from Canada, which critics say was a pledge for the great pharmaceutical industry of his State. After a backlash, Booker approved new legislation that would open the drug market and eliminated donations from Big Pharma. (Booker denied the change, saying the new bill provided for better safety standards.)

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, DN.Y., who was considered a relatively conservative democrat when she represented northern New York State in the House prior to her arrival in the Senate, repudiated some of her past positions in the most raw terms.

In a "60-minute" interview last year, Gillibrand said she was "embarrassed" by her opposition to gun safety bills and "shameful" of her past support for proposals to strengthen the application of immigration and deny driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants. Since then, the NRA has gone from "A" to "F". She also spoke out in favor of the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the transfer of her responsibilities elsewhere.

Sanders has also been criticized by the left for sometimes voting with gun rights activists, a problem he's stressed is viewed differently in rural Vermont. In 2016, he called for the repeal of a law to protect gun manufacturers from lawsuits.

"When you represent a region and run a country, things can be different in national politics than in a state or region," said Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg.

O & # 39; Rourke has worked to overcome the concerns of environmentalists with his record in Texas, which is home to a booming oil and gas industry.

He broke with most members of his party in 2015 by voting in favor of lifting the ban on oil exports for decades. Environmental groups had fought this measure and his campaign said last month that he was now opposing the lifting of the export ban, for lack of trust in the commitment. Trump in environmental safety. His campaign also said that he had changed his mind on a 2016 amendment to restrict energy exploration off the Gulf of Mexico, against which he had voted at the time. Last week, O 'Rourke released a $ 1,500 billion climate plan and announced that he would no longer make donations related to fossil fuel companies.

Then there is the unusual case of representative Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, who apologized this year for her past activism against gay rights in Hawaii. In her case, she cited family ties: Her father was a prominent anti-gay politician who ran a group called Stop Promoting Homosexuality America.

While generations of politicians have resurfaced for new audiences, the current field is facing challenges that precedents did not meet. Through the Internet, political opponents have easier access to candidates' past speeches, interviews and press releases, as well as an easy way to disseminate them. Individuals can quickly stream old clips on social networks.

For Democrats, however, the advantage of overreaching potentially damaging positions and proposals may be worthwhile, even if it exposes them to attack.

"The right-wing media have a field day with that, of course, but I do not think there's a good way to try to find the right side of the problems these days," said Manley .