For Democrats, Internal Dissent Could Stop an Agenda Cold

For instance, they will need to make order out of chaos on energy, the issue President Obama elevated from the Oval Office last week. Two days later, three Senate Democrats presented different plans to a party caucus that failed to settle on one approach.

“We are not going today to tell you what we’re going to have in this legislation,” the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, acknowledged afterward, “because that’s a work in progress.”

So is a major tax and spending bill, which has split Senate Democrats over conflicting imperatives to aid Americans suffering from a weak economy and to prevent higher deficits. In the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi delayed action on campaign finance legislation after a compromise struck with the National Rifle Association to win over moderates upset the Black Caucus.

All Democratic factions exulted in the Republican public relations disaster of Representative Joe L. Barton of Texas, who apologized to BP before retracting his words under orders from party leaders. Yet that provided only temporary respite from intra-Democratic battles after a 17-month roller-coaster ride in which their reward for advancing Mr. Obama’s agenda is near-10-percent unemployment and ominous pre-election polls.

“This is a difficult moment for Democrats,” said William A. Galston, who was domestic policy chief in the Clinton White House. “Under this kind of pressure in an election year, it’s inevitable.”

Competing Priorities

For much of the 20th century, when the Democratic Party contained white Southern conservatives, Northern liberals and African-Americans, the party had a reputation for fractiousness and ideological diversity. That diversity faded in recent decades as conservatives moved toward the Republicans.

Democratic gains in 2006 and 2008 swept in a raft of new members from conservative-leaning states and districts. But internal fissures in the Obama era have generally paled alongside those of earlier times. On issues like economic stimulus, health care and new financial regulations, Democratic lawmakers have displayed remarkable unity of purpose.

That is why the Democratic infighting now rising with the summer temperatures poses such problems for the White House. With Republicans maintaining near-unanimous opposition, even a moderate amount of internal dissent could stop Mr. Obama’s agenda cold.

“You have one party that has taken a pass on governing,” said Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director. “Our system’s not set up for that.”

Most vexing are the colliding priorities on the economy. Many Democrats consider it self-evident that spending billions of dollars more on unemployment benefits, Medicaid assistance and state aid to avoid teacher layoffs makes economic and political sense.

But more deficit-conscious Democrats, including vulnerable first-term members elected with Mr. Obama, consider it equally obvious that Congress must curb federal borrowing and answer public concerns about debt and deficits. Mr. Obama’s answer for reconciling those impulses, short-term spending and long-term austerity, has been hard to sell.

“The challenge is doing both without sending conflicting messages,” said Representative Chris Van Hollen, the Maryland Democrat who is chairman of the party’s House campaign committee. “That’s the balance you see members struggling with.”

Avoiding Risks

Energy presents another huge challenge as midterm elections draw closer.

Mr. Obama says only capping and putting a price on carbon dioxide emissions can accomplish three fundamental goals: lessening America’s dependence on oil, turning renewable alternatives into viable sources of energy and jobs, and curbing global warming.

But energy-state Democrats fear the economic effects, and vulnerable Democratic candidates fear Republican attacks on the administration’s “cap and tax” proposal. Even Democrats with common policy goals diverge on strategy.

Some environmentalists want to use outrage over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill in a last-ditch push for Mr. Obama’s carbon cap, which has passed the House but stalled in the Senate.

Others say the idea has already proved politically untenable; they want Democrats to settle for energy-efficiency legislation, then let Mr. Obama use his executive authority to regulate carbon through the Environmental Protection Agency.

Advocates of a cap “keep driving themselves into the wall,” said Timothy E. Wirth, a former Democratic senator from Colorado, who is now president of the United Nations Foundation. “It’s insane.”

Caution on energy fits with Mr. Galston’s suggestion for the unifying Democratic principle until Election Day: Avoid any further risks for incumbents in trouble.

But even that least-common-denominator strategy is not easy. The same polls that show voters upset about joblessness also show them upset about deficit spending, which Democratic leaders consider their only short-term method of reducing joblessness.

“There are moments in which the dominant premises of public argument are pretty clearly not true,” concluded Mr. Galston, who is now a Brookings Institution scholar. “But if you work in a democracy, you’ve got to pay some attention to what the public believes.”

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