Reparations is just one of several sensitive topics candidates could explore — if they were feeling candid enough to do it
It is a good thing for the Democratic National Committee that debate stages are not treated under law like drawing congressional districts or the party would be facing some uncomfortable questions.
The reality is that such a forthright clash of views on what remains perhaps the most sensitive subject among Democrats and in the country broadly is unlikely. Even contentious subjects —like that between Sen. Bernie Sanders and several moderates over whether private health insurance should be banned — are much easier to engage.
These interviews suggest on racial matters there is one big policy matter driving the left-center divide but a host of political matters relating to how specific candidates and the broader party positions itself. Centrist operatives believe most reparations proposals are unrealistic and unworkable as a practical matter and potentially disastrous as political matter. “A death wish,” said one veteran of recent Democratic administrations who has worked on presidential and congressional elections, who believes it would cement perceptions among a critical bloc of moderate white voters that the party is more obsessed with racial grievances than improving lives for average people regardless of race.
Beyond reparations, there likely is less ideological division among Democrats on racial matters than on subjects like health care, decriminalizing illegal border crossings, or attitudes toward business. Even centrist candidates, for instance, have criticized mass incarceration policies disproportionately affecting minorities, or expressed alarm about high use of deadly force by local police forces in African-American neighborhoods.Even so, there is left vs.
“Don’t confuse black with liberal. In South Carolina, if you’re African American there is a very high likelihood that you’re a Democrat,” Steve Benjamin, the mayor of Columbus, S.C., wrote in a list of 10 rules for winning his state. “It does not mean liberal. Nearly two-thirds of the Democratic primary electorate here is African-American. They are center-left, center-center, and yes— even center-right.
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