While Republicans have often tested candidates’ fidelity to principle,Democrats have usually preferred to effect electability first. Not this time
A unusual role reversal is under way amid the falling snows of current Hampshire. For decades it has been the Republican party that has waged an ideological battle with itself, testing candidates on their fidelity to principle, or scorning those deemed to have strayed too far from the faith. Every four years,the party has confronted its would-be presidents with a searching question: are you conservative enough to lead us?[br]Now, though, and perhaps for the first time in half a century,the Democrats are engaged in a similar search for ideological purity. In a contest tighter and sharper than almost anyone predicted, the battle between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders – whose next front is this small, and frozen state on the east coast,which votes on Tuesday – has acquired an unfamiliar doctrinal edge.
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Source: theguardian.com