Funding Bill Fight Highlights Democratic Divisions

First Read: “Yes, in the end, Obama won and Pelosi lost. But how public and personal it was is a big sign of things to come in the next Congress. It would have been disastrous for Obama had the legislation gone down to defeat. So call it the White House’s near- (lame) DUCK experience.”

“For six years, the divides inside the Democratic Party were papered over by the greater goal of the party to rally around their president. But now that many congressional Democrats view their president as weak and less powerful today (thank you 22nd Amendment!), there is more comfort in the populist wing of the Democratic Party to clash with the president and the establishment wing. As has been noted for the last four years as Washington has been engrossed in the drama of the divided GOP, there are similar divides in the Dem Party, they just were papered over by Obama. That paper has now been shredded.”