While the Republican Party has undergone some soul-searching this year in preparation for upcoming elections, the Democratic Party is dealing with its own struggles. The punditry is already looking ahead to 2014 and the Post-Obama era of 2016 to see if two big factions, the progressives and the centrists, can get along.
"On one side, liberals calling for a muscular agenda of government expansion and progressive taxation; on the other, centrists who believe restraint is necessary in both policy and politics," writes Molly Ball for The Atlantic. "Progressives have been emboldened by liberal victories like that of the new mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio. Centrists fear that liberals will drive the party out of the American mainstream with their talk of income redistribution and political correctness."
But we likely won't see the big battles until closer to 2016, writes Noam Scheiber for The Republic:
"Partly out of deference to the president, partly out of a preoccupation with governing, and partly because there is no immediate political need, parties rarely conduct their internal soul-searching when they control the White House. It's only when the president finally contemplates retirement that the feuding breaks out with real violence. Think of the Republican Party after George W. Bush."
On The Daily Circuit, we look at the internal divides of the party. Will it be disastrous, or can it be reconciled without too much damage?