The left's nightmare scenario is looking more believable

"The Trailer" political analysis by David Weigel @ WashingtonPost.com, Dec. 12

When the Center for Popular Democracy Action endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), it made several arguments at once. First, Sanders had embraced the left-wing coalition’s immigration stance — a moratorium on all deportations — and Democrats needed to follow him. Second, Sanders was in a strong position to beat President Trump if he became his adopted party’s nominee.

The third argument, according to CPDA’s co-president, Ana María Archila, was more of an “intervention" for fellow left-wingers. “We wanted to propel others to jump in,” she said. “We cannot sit on the sidelines as we watch this primary play out and allow a neoliberal be elected. If we stay divided, the corporate Democrats will pick the nominee.”

That was the left's nightmare scenario, and it was getting more believable at the worst possible time. The year began with a weak-looking Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) posing no threat to Sanders; by summer, Warren had jumped past Sanders and the rest of the field. Now, with Warren's momentum fading, the two Democrats most broadly acceptable to the left have been splitting endorsements and capturing separate swaths of the electorate. 

Centrists who had worried about Warren romping in Iowa and New Hampshire are less nervous now, with South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg surging in those states and former vice president Joe Biden holding his lead in upcoming Southern primaries.

"The far-left bloc is smaller than the candidates expected," said Jim Kessler, the co-founder of the business-friendly centrist group Third Way, which Sanders feuded with this summer. "They haven't expanded their base. It feels a lot like 2018: The left was ascendant, and then suddenly, when voters came in, they voted for mainstream candidates."

The primary debate has moved further left than Third Way wanted. No leading candidate has embraced the ideas, like a "small-business bill of rights," offered at the centrists' conferences. Buttigieg, who has been attracting most of the left's fury recently, has embraced some of its less economically disruptive ideas [....]