At a debate Tuesday night in Ohio, 12 Democratic candidates discussed who was best able to defeat President Donald Trump in November 2020. Meanwhile, back in Washington, House Democrats continued an impeachment inquiry that seems likely to recommend that Trump should be removed from office before the election even gets close.
A certain tension between the party’s presidential wing and its congressional wing is inevitable. Candidates for president need to present a broad yet coherent vision of the future — one that’s buttressed by a range of policy prescriptions and wrapped up in a message that’s both incisive and inclusive. House impeachment investigators are engaged in a very different business. They must drill down into the details of White House malfeasance, and be singularly focused on holding a wayward president accountable for wrongdoing.
Although these two pursuits are necessarily distinct, it’s important that they should not be at odds. The most obvious danger is that a mismanaged impeachment inquiry might worsen the party’s electoral prospects next year. The best way to guard against that is for each effort to take account of wider political currents and, above all, command the confidence of Americans outside the Democratic Party’s base.
So far, both wings are holding up well. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is a partisan leader, but she has proved a cautious and reluctant impeacher, resisting calls to proceed until the news of the president’s improper dealings with the new president of Ukraine left her no choice. Despite the administration’s persistent defiance of congressional authority, the flow of information has been steady and damning.
Details of the shadow foreign policy run by Rudolph Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, are only the latest in a series of remarkable improprieties now coming to light. These and much else demand further investigation. On Tuesday, Giuliani said he would ignore a congressional subpoena demanding that he turn over documents. The House should use all the tools at its disposal to force compliance.
It should also remember that the more clinical and less partisan these investigations appear to the public, the more likely they are to convince skeptics — and that’s crucial.
If the inquiry is perceived as cynical and unprincipled, it will not only fail in its own right but also harm the Democrats’ electoral prospects next year. Granted, the presidential hustings are inherently partisan: Candidates, after all, are appealing to fellow partisans to earn the nomination of their party. Yet there was encouraging evidence on the stage Tuesday night that most of the Democrats running for president also understand that partisanship is too pinched a response to a nation in crisis. Compared with previous debates, there was a greater emphasis on collegiality, and fewer efforts to ambush or embarrass rivals.
With public trust low, and many information sources polluted with misinformation, it’s going to take patience, persistence and a good strong measure of respect for dissenting views to reach some of the men and women whose support Democrats will need. To defeat Trump — either sooner, through congressional action, or later, in a presidential election — Democrats should remain mindful of what matters, and of the people they need to persuade.
— Bloomberg News