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Representative Debbie Dingell of Michigan called for Democrats to go on offense and attack the presidents perceived strength on economic matters with working-class voters.

We need to show working men and women we understand their anxieties and fears, she said, and show that Trump is treating them like just another politician.

By fiercely contesting a congressional race in the conservative Atlanta suburbs, Democrats had hoped to make an emphatic statement about the weakness of the Republican Party under Mr. Trump. Their candidate, Jon Ossoff, raised about $25 million, mostly in small donations, and assertively courted right-of-center voters with promises of economic development and fiscal restraint.

That vague message, Democrats said Wednesday, was plainly not powerful enough to counter an onslaught of Republican advertising that cast Mr. Ossoff as a puppet of liberal national Democrats, led by Ms. Pelosi, an intensely unpopular figure on the right and a longstanding target of Republican attacks. While Mr. Ossoff made inroads by exploiting Mr. Trumps unpopularity and a backlash against health care legislation approved in the House, Democrats said they would have to do more to actually win.

Representative Eric Swalwell of California, who is close to party leaders, said Democrats would crystallize our message on jobs, on health care in the coming months. The results in Georgia and other special elections, he said, should encourage Democrats to campaign across a huge map of districts. We need to compete everywhere, he said.

Representative Ben Ray Lujn of New Mexico, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, met Wednesday morning with a group of lawmakers who have been conferring about economic messaging, according to several people present who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Mr. Lujn told the group that his committee would examine the Georgia results for lessons, but he urged the lawmakers to portray the race in positive terms in their public comments, stressing that Democrats have consistently exceeded their historical performance in a series of special elections fought in solidly Republican territory.

It was in the meeting with Mr. Lujn that Mr. Crdenas, a member of the Democratic leadership, brought up Ms. Pelosis role in the Georgia race, calling it the elephant in the room. Ms. Pelosi was not present.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Crdenas, while acknowledging his comment, said he had invoked the leader in the context of what can be done to stand up to those attacks in the future.

Ms. Pelosi has consistently rejected calls to step down, and there was little indication that her leadership post was at risk. She responded to the election results in a Dear Colleague letter to Democratic lawmakers late Wednesday, underscoring the partys improving performance in conservative areas and saying that every effort was made to win in Georgia.

But Ms. Pelosi also said it was time for Democrats to put forth our message, and promised an economic one that we can all embrace and utilize in our districts.

She did not directly address the sometimes caustic criticism of her leadership from skeptics within the party. Several lawmakers who have opposed her in the past argued that Ms. Pelosi would undermine the partys candidates for as long as she holds her post.

Representative Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, an open critic of Ms. Pelosi, called the Georgia result frustrating and urged a shake-up at the top of the party.

Representative Kathleen Rice of New York told CNN the entire Democratic leadership team should go.

Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio, who tried to unseat Ms. Pelosi as House minority leader late last fall, said she remained a political millstone for Democrats. But Mr. Ryan said the Democratic brand had also become toxic in much of the country because voters saw Democrats as not being able to connect with the issues they care about.

Our brand is worse than Trump, he said.

A top aide to Ms. Pelosi dismissed the idea that her lightning-rod status might have hurt the Democratic effort in Georgia, and pointed out that in some polls the Republican speaker, Paul D. Ryan, is viewed even more dismally.

Any Democratic leader would become a target for the right, said the aide, Drew Hammill, Ms. Pelosis deputy chief of staff.

Republicans blew through millions to keep a ruby red seat and in their desperate rush to stop the hemorrhaging, theyve returned to demonizing the partys strongest fund-raiser and consensus builder, he said. They dont have Clinton or Obama, so this is what they do.

But in a possible omen, the first Democratic candidate to announce his campaign after the Georgia defeat immediately vowed not to support Ms. Pelosi for leader. Joe Cunningham, a South Carolina lawyer challenging Representative Mark Sanford, said Democrats needed new leadership now.

Even Democrats who are not openly antagonistic toward Ms. Pelosi acknowledged that a decade of Republican attacks had taken a toll: Its pretty difficult to undo the demonization of anyone, said Representative Bill Pascrell Jr. of New Jersey.

In some respects, the sniping over the Democrats campaign message mirrors a larger divide in the Democratic Party, dating to the 2016 presidential primary contest and earlier. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and his supporters have pressed Democrats to embrace a more bluntly populist message, assailing wealthy special interests and endorsing the expansion of social welfare programs, while more moderate Democrats in the party leadership have favored an approach closer to Mr. Ossoffs.

But in four contested special elections in Republican districts including two, in Kansas and Montana, featuring Sanders-style insurgents neither method provided the party with a breakthrough victory.

In the absence of a smashing win that might have settled the left-versus-center debate, Democrats may face a longer process of internal deliberation before they settle on an approach that is broadly acceptable in the party.

Part of the Democrats challenge now is that the jobless rate is low, and many of the districts they are targeting are a lot like the Georgia seat: thriving suburbs filled with voters who have only watched their portfolios grow since Mr. Trump took office.

Even as they smarted from their defeat on Wednesday, Democrats signaled that they intend to compete across a vast area of the country in 2018. Mr. Lujn, moving to calm the party, circulated a memo to lawmakers and staff members that declared there was no doubt that Democrats can take back the House next fall in the midterm elections. He wrote that six to eight dozen seats held by Republican lawmakers would be easier for Democrats to capture than Georgias Sixth.

Citing snippets of private polling, Mr. Lujn said there were Republican seats in southern Arizona and Florida, northern New Jersey and the Kansas City, Kan., suburbs, where Democratic challengers were already ahead of Republican incumbents.

Democrats need to win 24 Republican-held seats to win control of the House.

On the Republican side, jubilation over the victory in Georgia mixed with lingering unease about the overall political environment. While Ms. Handel defeated Mr. Ossoff by about 10,000 votes and nearly four percentage points, Republican outside groups had to spend $18 million defending a district where the partys candidates had won easily for decades.

And on the same night, a little-watched special election in South Carolina gave Republicans another scare, as an obscure Democrat, Archie Parnell, came within 3,000 votes of capturing a solidly Republican congressional district, with voter turnout far behind the Georgia race.

Nick Everhart, a Republican strategist in Ohio, said the party should not allow its relief at having kept Democrats at bay to turn into complacency. Up to this point, he said, Republicans have been beating Democrats only on solidly red turf.

To pretend that there are not serious enthusiasm-gap issues with the G.O.P. base and, more crucially, independents fleeing, is missing the lessons that need to be learned before truly competitive seats are on the board, Mr. Everhart said.

Still, the immediate aftermath of the Georgia election was plainly tougher on the Democratic side, as the party endured a fourth special election that ended with a better-than-usual showing by a defeated Democrat. That pattern may put Democrats on track to gain power in the 2018 elections, but 17 months is a long wait for a party so hungry to win.

Emily Cochrane contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on June 22, 2017, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Democrats Fume As Georgia Loss Deepens Discord.

Go here to read the rest:
Democrats Seethe After Georgia Loss: Our Brand Is Worse ...

Mary Kate Cary, Opinion contributor 6:00 a.m. ET June 26, 2017

Top Democratic House leaders Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, March 24, 2017, Washington(Photo: Chip Somodevilla, Getty Images)

Roughly 80%of us now live in states either partially or totally controlled by Republicans. Two-thirds of our nations governors are now Republican tying a 94-year-old record and an all-time high 69 of99 state legislatures now have Republican majorities. In half of our 50 states, both the state legislature and the governorship are controlled by Republicans. And thats aside from the fact that Republicans control Congress and the White House and have appointed a majority of justices on the Supreme Court.

After four straight lossesin recent special elections for congressional seats,on top of more than 1,030 seats lost nationally by Democrats in state legislatures, governorshipsand Congress since 2009, the Democratic National Committee needs to figure out the cause of what can only be called the partys slow death.

Its time for the DNC to perform an autopsy.

The Republicans did the same thing in 2012 when they published the Growth and Opportunity Project affectionately known around Washington as The Autopsy. And while not everyone agreed with its recommendations, the authors were well-respected GOP leaders who called for changes to the partys messaging, demographic outreach, use of new technology and data, number of debates and primary schedule. The guy who ordered the autopsy is now White House chief of staff.

Georgia warning to Democrats: Trump isn't the answer. Yet.

Trump resistance will never be a Tea Party for Democrats

Sally Bradshaw, one of the co-authors, said in 2012, We have become expert at how to provide ideological information to like-minded people but, devastatingly, we have lost the ability to be persuasive with or welcoming to those who don't agree with us on every issue.

Say what you want about Donald Trump who was not a fan of the reports recommendations and disagrees with many traditional Republican policies but he brought millions of new voters to the GOP. He knew how to connect with the people he called forgotten Americans, many of whom had never voted Republican. Republican turnout in the primaries set a new record.

The massive loss of Democratic seats across the nation has meant the left is now without a pipeline of quality candidates. Exhibit A: Jon Ossoff, the progressive candidate in the Georgia special election, didnt even live in the district in which he was running. Apparently,there was no one in the district to recruit. Exhibit B: Rob Quist, the Democrat in Mays special election in Montana, was a banjo-playing songwriter who hasperformed at a nudist camp. Not that theres anything wrong with that.

The Democrats also have a policy problem. In an era of viciousattacks by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, staggering national debtand menacing actions by North Korea, theyonly seem to want to talk about abortion rights, transgender bathroomsand gun control. Rich Lowry observed in Politicothat if Democrats had to choose between opposing an actual coup against Trump and endorsing a ban on abortion after 20 weeks, theyd probably have to think about it. I think hes right.

While 58% in a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll sayTrump is out of touch with the concerns of most people, an even higher percentage 67% sayDemocrats are. That includes 44% of Democrats themselves.

Heres another disconnect: The average age of the Democratic leadership in the House is 76; for Republicans, its 49. A recent headline from the liberal Huffington Post: Democratic leadership looks like old Soviet Politburo. That headline has the added benefit of being true: The average age of the Politburo before its collapse was only 70. Having California Rep. Nancy Pelosias the face of the Democratic Party is not a great strategy for winning the youth vote.

But I have a feeling there wont be any autopsy from the DNC. Instead, New Mexico Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, predicted in a staff memo last week that Democrats would take the full House back in 2018. I am not making this up.

Democrats cant elect their own candidates: Your Say

POLICING THE USA: A look at race, justice, media

Why have a serious examination of whats gone wrong when you can keep tweeting #Resist, marching in pink hats, and cheering on Alec Baldwin? The left will keep Pelosi and New York Sen. Chuck Schumer in charge, theyll keep widening the disconnect with the middle class by fighting for policies that expand government and slow the economy, and theyll keep whistling past the graveyard.

The longer it takes for Democrats to call the coroner, the better for Republicans.

Mary Kate Cary, a former White House speechwriter for President George H.W. Bush, is a senior fellow for presidential studies at the University of Virginias Miller Center. Follow her on Twitter: @mkcary

You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @USATOpinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To submit a letter, comment or column, check our submission guidelines.

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Democrats will keep failing until they do their own autopsy - USA TODAY

In the wake of last weeks special congressional election in Georgia, on which Democrats spent more than $30 million only to come up short, some on the left have taken solace in the idea that the result was nonetheless a good portenta sign that Democratic candidates are poised to win the House next year.

The Georgia race, they point out, took place in a very Republican districtone that went for its Republican representative, Tom Price, by a 23-point margin last year. (Price triggered the special election when he took the job of health and human services secretary in the Trump administration.) Republican Karen Handel, by contrast, won by just 4 percentage points, 52 percent, compared to 48 percent for the Democrat, Jon Ossoff.

By that calculation, Ossoff knocked 19 points off the normal Republican margin, a staggering swing. If Democrats could knock 19 points off every Republican representatives winning margin in 2018, they would win a huge majority of seats in the House of Representatives. Republicans, by this logic, shouldnt be celebrating Handels win; they should be quaking in their boots.

It is, of course, not that simple. While Ossoff did come impressively close, Democrats are going to have to improve on his showing nationally if they hope to take the House next year.

For one thing, Georgias Sixth District isnt nearly as Republican as Prices margin of victory suggests. He was a popular incumbent who had represented the district for more than a decade; his Democratic opponent in 2016 was someone named Rodney Stooksbury, who got there by being the only person to file papers for the Democratic nomination. Stooksbury spent $0 on the race and ran no perceptible campaign. A local TV station that tried to track him down found that not even his neighbors had heard of him, and concluded, Voters question if Stooksbury even exists.

We can assume, then, that the 38 percent of the vote won by Stooksbury reflects the proportion of the districts voters who would vote for a ham sandwich if it had a D next to its name.

Meanwhile, at the top of the ticket, Donald Trump also won the district, but by a much narrower margin: He took about 48 percent of the vote to Hillary Clintons 47 percent. That means Ossoff performed only a point better than Clinton did, while Handel overperformed Trump by 4 points.

Could Democrats win the midterms by getting about the same proportion of the vote as Clinton did last year? She did, after all, win the popular vote. But because of uneven population distribution and the way the House districts are drawn, this would not be enough: Trump won 230 out of 435 congressional districts, more than the 218 required for a majority. (Because so many Republican candidates, like Price, did better than Trump, Republicans actually won 241 seats.)

By this metric, its clear that Democrats must do more than simply match Clintons vote share to win the House.

Clinton did unusually well in Georgias Sixth, which is home to a disproportionate number of the sort of voters Trump struggled with: affluent, college-educated white professionals. These kinds of districts, where otherwise Republican-leaning voters were turned off by Trump, are precisely the ones Democrats will be targeting in 2018. But in many of them, they will be up against popular, conventional Republican incumbentscandidates like Tom Pricemaking it all the more of an uphill battle.

There are more nuanced ways of looking at a given districts partisan tilt, such as the Cook Political Reports Partisan Voter Index, which gives the Sixth District a rating of R+8. By that measure, Ossoff overperformed more significantly, though he still didnt exceed expectations as much as the Democratic candidates in the other three, less-hyped special elections held this year, as David Wasserman explains. The PVI calculation, which takes more than one presidential election into account, may be more accurate in assessing a given districts baselineor it may fail to account for the degree to which Trump will be a factor next year.

All of this math is a bit apples-to-oranges. Turnout in a presidential election is different from turnout in a midterm election, which is different from special-election turnout. Its always a mistake to read too much into special elections; they are thermometers of the current political climate, not predictors of whats to come.

But theres one unavoidable fact: Democrats cannot win Congress in 2018 unless a substantial proportion of Trumps 2016 voters either switch their votes or decide to stay home. In Georgia, that didnt happen.

See more here:
Democrats Will Have to Do Better Than Ossoff - The Atlantic

In theory, Democrats could retake the House by winning a clear majority of these top districts. They might well do so, especially if aided by additional retirements. But Democrats will probably lose more of these districts than they win. To win the remaining seats, theyll need to carry at least a few districts in places that dont look obviously competitive today. This tends to happen in so-called wave elections, like 2006 or 2010.

The good news for Democrats is that despite going 0 for 4 in special House elections this spring, the results were consistent with a wave environment: All four races became hotly contested, even though none were thought to be especially competitive.

The next three groups another 41 districts in all are among the likeliest to come into play in a strong Democratic year. Most of these districts will not prove to be especially competitive, and it is difficult to predict which incumbents will ultimately prove vulnerable. A few months ago, I certainly would not have guessed that South Carolinas Fifth District or Kansas Fourth would be decided by three- and seven-point margins.

For now, all the Democrats can do is recruit good candidates in as many districts as possible and see which races become competitive in September or October 2018. Republicans, meanwhile, need to make sure that typically safe incumbents are prepared for the worst. In this springs special elections, national Republican groups spent millions to prop up candidates in Republican-leaning districts. Republican candidates probably cant count on the same kind of assistance if the playing field expands to 70 or 80 districts.

Well-educated Sun Belt suburbs have been reliably Republican for a generation. But President Trump struggled badly in these areas and now theyre among the top Democratic targets in 2018.

The possibility that these districts will be highly competitive is no longer merely theoretical. Several of these districts were surprisingly competitive in 2016, and the newest member Karen Handel won by only four percentage points in the most conservative district of the bunch.

The outcome in Georgias Sixth is a reminder that these places arent easy for the Democrats, even if theyre among their best targets. Hillary Clinton did well in these districts by luring many voters who dont typically support Democratic candidates, and most of these Republican incumbents have represented their districts for a long time.

On paper, the Democrats have an even better shot in five other Sun Belt districts where Mrs. Clinton won big in 2016 and where Barack Obama either won or nearly did in 2012.

Theres one catch: Hispanic voters make up at least 30 percent of eligible voters in all of these districts. These places might not be quite as Democratic-leaning in a midterm electorate, when Hispanic turnout often slumps considerably. The Republican incumbents here, often Hispanic themselves, are generally good fits for their districts as well.

Even so, these seats represent some of the best Democratic opportunities. Its the only group where Democrats are favored to win a majority of the seats in a wave election year. Ileana Ros-Lehtinens retirement makes Floridas 27th the best Democratic pick-up opportunity in the country. The neighboring 26th district and Texas 23rd are also among the top Democratic targets. These three districts have fairly well-educated white voters, and the Republican incumbent didnt win by a daunting margin in 2016.

Turnout will be a big challenge for the Democrats in the two heavily Hispanic districts in Californias Central Valley, which often posts some of the lowest turnout rates in the country.

Democrats often look at the seats where Mrs. Clinton won and assume those are the easiest seats to win in 2018. But any Democrat familiar with the names in this section knows its not so easy.

These battle-tested incumbents generally represent classic battleground districts, like the suburbs around Denver or Philadelphia. Yet they have consistently run far ahead of the national partys performance in presidential elections.

These seats would instantly be among the top Democratic targets in the country if the Republican incumbents retired. As it is, none of these incumbents will be easy for Democrats to defeat. A few, like Frank LoBiondo of New Jersey, might escape without a competitive race at all.

But most of these representatives will probably find themselves in highly competitive races. In a tough year for Republicans, several would probably lose. But many would probably survive, despite their districts Democratic lean in presidential elections. Many of these representatives even survived the big Democratic waves in 2006 and 2008.

If Washingtons Dave Reichert wins re-election, he will be the only Republican to have won in 2006 and 2008 in a district carried by Al Gore and John Kerry, and to win re-election in 2018 in a district carried by Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton.

Most have survived in part by amassing a moderate voting record to please their moderate constituents. True to form, six of them voted no on the Republican health care bill, including Mr. Reichert. The three who voted for the bill Peter Roskam, Erik Paulsen and Rodney Frelinghuysen might now find it harder to pitch themselves as moderate voices in Washington.

The suburban stragglers, on the other hand, havent run so far ahead of their party. Many of these representatives were elected for the first time last year or the cycle before. Others have been around for longer, like Leonard Lance of New Jersey, but didnt outpace their partys recent presidential performances by an impressive amount.

And then theres Tom MacArthur of New Jersey, who brokered the House health care compromise. If he had stayed out of it, his 21-point victory in 2016 would have kept him out of this category.

Democrats have understandably focused on how they might be able to win back white voters without college degrees since Mr. Trumps surprising victory in November. But when it comes to control of the House, the Northern, white working-class voters who put Mr. Trump over the top cant take center stage.

Its not because Democrats cant win those voters. Its because there just arent many competitive districts in white working-class areas. Thats in no small part because states like Wisconsin, Ohio and Michigan are so heavily gerrymandered that there arent many competitive districts at all.

Instead, most of the top Democratic white working-class opportunities are in states like Iowa and Maine, where the political geography doesnt allow for a brutal gerrymander, or in states like New York and Illinois, where Democrats have more control. These districts will still be quite competitive, despite Mr. Trumps gains, much as the Sun Belt districts will be tougher for Democrats than Mrs. Clintons results alone imply. Making matters a bit easier for the Democrats: Many of these representatives have been in office only since 2014 or 2016, and they did not run well ahead of Mr. Trump.

There might not be many top-tier Democratic opportunities in white working-class districts, but in a wave election the Democrats could become competitive in a broader set of those districts. One group that might come into play: the incumbents who seem to fare a little worse than they ought to.

Mr. Trump and Mitt Romney won these districts comfortably, but these representatives tended to run no better or even worse than the president. Even more concerning: Many of them, whatever the reason, have been underperforming their party for a while. Democrats might be slightly more optimistic about these seats than they would be about a typical Republican district.

The huge Democratic gains in well-educated areas have brought a whole new group of seats to the top of the battleground list. They have also brought another tier of seats to the brink of competitiveness.

Dont be mistaken: These districts still lean Republican. Mr. Trump won them by a comfortable margin. But the big Democratic gains in well-educated areas create some odd dangers for the Republicans, especially in districts that continue to lean Republican by the margin of crafty gerrymanders.

Part of the danger: the possibility of a midterm turnout mismatch between the high-turnout, well-educated, now highly energized and increasingly Democratic-leaning parts of these districts (like Lansing, Mich., or Austin, Tex.) and the lower-turnout, perhaps deflated Republican countryside thats supposed to overwhelm it.

Another danger: These districts are just Republican enough to look safe, which could catch one or two of these incumbents off guard. Most of these representatives havent fought a competitive race in years, if ever. Most of them didnt post very impressive performances in 2016. Part of the reason is that several of these districts were recently redrawn by the courts.

My guess: A lot of these Republicans will find themselves in single-digit races come October 2018. Maybe one gets surprised on Election Day.

These districts are sort of the reverse of the fragile gerrymanders and the underperforming incumbents. Theyre held by Republicans who have run well in recent elections, usually in districts that have been trending Republican.

But if the Democrats cant get the seats they need in the suburbs, these Republican-trending districts with fairly strong incumbents might be the backup plan.

In a sense, the backup plan is the old plan. These districts would have been very important to the Democratic path to a House majority in 2012 or 2014.

President Obama won these districts in 2008 and lost by only a narrow margin in 2012. Several of these districts were represented by Democrats in 2012, and others had extremely close races. A few of these places havent been especially competitive in presidential contests but have old Democratic traditions that might still help the right Democrat.

These districts arent so important to Democratic chances now, thanks to Mr. Trumps gains among white working-class voters and the generally strong performances of these incumbents in recent elections.

But in a wave election, several of these seats would probably become competitive again.

Over all, there are a lot of districts where Democrats have a real chance but probably arent favored to win. They should expect a lot of close-but-no-cigar showings, just like this springs special elections. The question is whether they can cobble together the 24 seats they need to retake the House.

Read the original post:
Democrats' Best Chance to Retake the House? 8 Types of GOP Districts to Watch - New York Times

THE TICKER

To understand where the debate over financial regulation stands today, it helps to rewind the clock.

Two years and two weeks ago, Hillary Clinton delivered a speech on New Yorks Roosevelt Island that formally launched her presidential bid. The address was heavy on personal biography, but it also nodded toward the policy themes shed develop over the campaign. The GOP hopefuls already crowding the race, she said, pledge to wipe out tough rules on Wall Street, rather than rein in the banks that are still too risky, courting future failures in a case that can only be considered mass amnesia.

Three days later, Donald Trump elbowed his way into the Republican field. And over the next several months, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)would rise from a gadfly to a serious threat to Clintons once-assumed coronation. Both outsiders were born aloft by twin engines of anti-establishment animus rumbling out on the parties wings.

Clinton went on to flesh out a program that in any other campaign would be considered notably strict on the financial industry. She advocated extending regulation to the world of so-called shadow banking by big insurance companies and hedge funds. She called for imposing a new risk fee on the biggest banks; raising taxes on activist investors and high-frequency traders; tightening the Volcker Rule; curbing executive compensation on Wall Street; and creating new tools for regulators and prosecutors to hold individual wrongdoers accountable.

Trump, on the other hand, vowed to dismantle the 2010 Dodd-Frank law, which he blamed for slowing economic growth by choking off lending. And he pledged to rip up regulations of every stripe. Yet borrowing a page from the Sanders playbook, he also managed to tag Clinton as the candidate friendliest to the industry. He hammered her for the Wall Street money she collected in speaking fees and checks to the Clinton Foundation. Goldman Sachs, he said at one point, had total control over Clinton. The ad that formed the closing argument of his campaign showed grainy footage of Clinton shaking hands with Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein. It painted Clinton as a tool of a shadowy globalist conspiracy. (Watch it here:)

In the first chapter of Trumps presidency, the struggle over financial regulation has passed through the looking glass. Where Trump offered a confused message on the campaign the Republican platform called both for eliminating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and reinstating the Glass-Steagall Act that separated commercial and investment banking his administration has adopted an unequivocally pro-industry approach. Wall Street alums populate his economic brain trust. The road map for rethinking financial regulation that his Treasury Department issued earlier this month reads like a big bank wish-list.

Meanwhile, Democrats, who competed during the campaign to stake out the most aggressive stance toward policing the sector, now look hopelessly divided over which direction to head. When House Republicans brought their proposal for gutting Dodd-Frank to the floor earlier this month, Democrats disarmed. Instead of pushing amendments designed to highlight the GOPs pro-industry tilt, they held off, in part to avoid forcing their own finance-friendly members onto the record. And there was no talk at all about cranking the regulatory dial in the other direction of tightening rules, as Clinton had proposed on the campaign. The Democratic position instead was simply to defend the status quo: Our alternative is Dodd-Frank, one House Democratic leadership told me.

A similar dynamic has played out in the Senate. Last week, a handful of the most powerful Wall Street regulators assembled before the Senate Banking Committee to offer their thoughts about the future of regulation. The conversation revolved around how far to go lifting the industrys burden. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), for example, joined Republicans in endorsing an easing of the Volcker Rule. That left Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), scourge of the big banks, trying simply to hold the line for a regime under which theyre prospering. Institutions that entered the year nervous that a Glass-Steagall revival would gain traction could breathe a sigh of relief: Over the two-hour course of the hearing, the proposal wasnt mentioned.

Here was one financial regulation reporter's takeaway:

Whats going on here? Industry advocates say a law written in the immediate aftermath of a system-rattling crisis is ripe for technical tweaks. Its a view given credence by regulatory stalwarts calling for adjustments, a roster that includes Federal Reserve ChairJanet L. Yellen, former Fed governor Daniel Tarullo, and former Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) himself.

Critics say the party is missing a historic opportunity. We have a merger of Wall Street and the White House like no time in modern memory, says Dennis Kelleher, president of Better Markets, a nonprofit advocacy group. It should be a no-brainer. Focus groups of Rust Belt voters who backed Obama and then Trump affirm the conclusion. Guy Cecil chairman of Priorities USA, a Democratic super PAC has found those voters feel the Democratic Party no longer stands up for their interests and that it must do more to confront the industry.

Democratic waffling on the Wall Street question points to a more fundamental rift in the party about its shortest path out of the wilderness. The Posts Dan Balz, writing over the weekend, says Democrats are struggling to unify around a broader economic message:

Though united in vehement opposition to the president, Democrats do not speak with one voice. Fault lines and fissures exist between the ascendant progressive wing at the grass roots and those Democrats who remain more business-friendly. While these differences are not as deep as those seen in Trumps Republican Party, that hasnt yet generated a compelling or fresh message to take to voters who arent already sold on the party.

The debate has only just begun. For progressives, Balz writes, the answer to this problem is clear: a boldly liberal message that attacks big corporations and Wall Street and calls for a significant increase in governments role in reducing income and wealth inequality. Moderates are already resisting. But this much is clear: Standing against Trump is an insufficient strategy for defeating Republicans. And another campaign season, rapidly approaching, will force the question.

MARKET MOVERS

13 reactions to the Senate GOP health-care bill:

The GOP's intramural staring contest over health care enters the finals in the Senate this week. At least five Republican senators are now on record opposing the billcrafted behind closed doors by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and a handful of lieutenants. And several more expressed serious reservations over the weekend. A moment of truth is coming this week as the Congressional Budget Office prepares to releaseits analysis of the bill and its impact on costs and coverage. Senate GOP leaders are still pushing for a vote this week but the timing could slip.

If the deal now taking shape reaches the president's desk,millions including some of Trumps most ardent supporters are projected to lose coverage, receive fewer benefits or see their premiums rise.

Jared Kushner's real estate firm received a $285 million loan from Deutsche Bank just before the election, my colleagueMichael Kranish reports.The deal came as the bankwas negotiating to settle a federal mortgage fraud case and charges from New York state regulators that it aided a possible Russian money-laundering scheme. It settled the cases in December and January.The White House, in response to questions from The Post, said in a statement that Kushnerwill recuse from any particular matter involving specific parties in which Deutsche Bank is a party.

Trump is set to meetIndian prime minister Narendra Modi today. Modi is expected to press for more H1B visas for Indian immigrants and a deal to buy more U.S. arms.One point of potential leverage for Trump: the U.S. is the biggest buyer of goods and services from India, with that country enjoying a $25 billion trade surplus in the relationship, despite a $105 billion tradedeficit overall. The meeting between the leaders of the world's two largest democracies comes as the Trump Organization is pushing to double its real estate empire in India.

The global economy has picked up and prospects for the next few months are the best in a long time. But the recovery is maturing and faces risks from populist rejection of free trade and from high debt that could burden consumers and companies as interest rates rise.

Associated Press

Oil rose for a third straight session on Monday, as speculators took advantage of last week's drop to seven-month lows, although a relentless increase in U.S. supply and little evidence of a widespread drop in global inventories capped gains.

Reuters

MONEY ON THE HILL

House Republicans are looking to generate $1.5 trillion over a decade by zeroing out the deduction for interest that companies pay on debt. The proposal would whack everyone from Wall Street to wheat farmers, though it's gotten relatively little lobbying attention so far this year, the Wall Street Journal writes. Eliminating the deduction would have a massive impact on a U.S. financial system that favors debt over equity financing. Repeal is hardly assured, with the administration expressing wariness.

The AP takes a step back, meanwhile, toask and attemptto answer, why Republicans are having such a hard time cutting taxes, a defining priority for the party.

Bernie and Jane Sanders reportedly retained attorneys to represent them in a long-running investigation into the collapse of Burlington College.

David Weigel

POCKET CHANGE

There's some new real-world evidence supporting the argument for raising the minimum wage. UC Berkeley researchers say they've developed a model that shows Seattle's recently-increased pay standard hasn't depressed job availability. Nor has the city's minimum wage, which now stands at $13 an hour for workers atlarge companies, on its way toward $15 by 2021, raised the cost of living, Fast Company reports. But another new study finds that the wage increase has had the net effect of reducing low-wage workers' earnings.

Meanwhile, wage pressure at Uberhas apparently compelled the ride-hailing company to authorize tipping for the first time. The company announced last week it will be rolling out the practice in cities and then nationwide.

Some say former Vice President Joe Biden is too old to run for president in 2020, but he still knows how to throw a verbal punch -- just ask financier Bill Ackman.

Fox Business

CHART TOPPER

The Posts David Fahrenthold and Drew Harwell report that Trumps private Mar-a-Lago resort has seen a drop in events since he announced he would run for president:

TRUMP TRACKER

--Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin tied the knot with actress and producer Louise Linton on Saturday a wedding officiated by Vice President Mike Pence and attended by President Trump and members of his family.

First lady Melania Trump, Ivanka Trump and her husband, Kushner, attended the extravagant nuptials at the Andrew Mellon Auditorium in Washington. The affair included bagpipers and ballerinas, CNN reported.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The wedding was held at The Andrew Mellon Auditorium, just blocks from the White House. Andrew Mellon, for whom the building was named, was likewise a wealthy businessman-turned-Treasury Secretary, presiding over the roaring 1920s, through the market crash of 1929 and into the beginning of the Great Depression in 1932. The hall is one of two buildings in Washington named for him. He once lived in the other -- now known as the Andrew Mellon Building, at 1785 Massachusetts Ave. NW, and home to the American Enterprise Institute, the right-leaning think tank.

Welcome to Gurgaon, India, Mr. President. Its a mess.

Annie Gowen

DAYBOOK

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THE FUNNIES

From The Post's Tom Toles:

BULL SESSION

Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) announced he would not support the Republican Senate health-care bill:

Watch as Capitol Police officer Crystal Griner, who was injured during the shooting at a Republican baseball practice, throw out the first pitch before the Congressional Women's Softball Game last week:

Jimmy Fallon on Trumps campaign-style rally in Iowa:

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The Finance 202: Democrats are more divided than ever over Wall Street regulations - Washington Post