自从参议员汤姆·哈金在2015年结束五届任期退休以来，他在艾奥瓦州的民主党同僚们表现不佳。共和党人控制了原本由两党分治的州政府和国会代表团，而唐纳德·特朗普三次赢得艾奥瓦州，最近一次以超过13个百分点的优势获胜。如今，86岁的哈金听力有些下降、身体虚弱，但他重新回到竞选活动中，支持民主党候选人——这些候选人正在各级选举中发起出人意料的强劲挑战。
Ever since Senator Tom Harkin retired after five terms in 2015, his fellow Democrats in Iowa have fared poorly. Republicans took control of what had been a divided state government and a divided congressional delegation, and Donald Trump won Iowa three times, most recently by more than 13 points. Now a bit hard of hearing and frail at 86, Mr Harkin is back on the stump, to support Democratic candidates who are mounting surprisingly strong challenges up and down the ticket.
与其他地方一样，艾奥瓦州的许多竞选活动既愚蠢又糟糕。创纪录的资金被用于充斥电视广播，播放恶意且具有误导性的广告。哈金的出现可谓一剂良药，不仅因为他一如既往地和蔼可亲、直言不讳。当他介绍正在竞选他旧日参议院席位的乔什·图雷克，而图雷克坐着轮椅上前接过麦克风时，这一幕令人动容地提醒人们，所有这些政治活动本应关乎的是什么。
As elsewhere, a lot of the campaigning in Iowa has been stupid and awful. Record sums are being spent to jam the airways with s making nasty, misleading claims. Mr Harkin’s presence is something of a tonic, and not only because he is as genial and plain-spoken as ever. When he introduces Josh Turek, who is campaigning for Mr Harkin’s old Senate seat, and Mr Turek pushes himself forward in his wheelchair to take the microphone, the exchange supplies a poignant reminder of the sort of thing all this politicking is supposed to be about.
哈金是那部禁止歧视残疾人的里程碑式民权法案的捍卫者。图雷克天生患有脊柱裂，1990年《美国残疾人法案》（ADA）通过时他11岁。他称哈金为自己的政治英雄，并表示如果没有这部法律，“我所获得的每一个经济、每一个职业、每一个教育机会都不会存在。”和哈金本人一样，图雷克也急于指出更多的东西。哈金依靠共和党盟友通过了该法案。“这是一个了不起的例子，展示了当我们愿意合作时能够做到什么，”图雷克说。
Mr Harkin was the champion of the landmark civil-rights law banning discrimination against people with disabilities. Mr Turek, who was born with spina bifida, was 11 when that law, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), passed in 1990. He calls Mr Harkin his political hero and says without the law, “every economic, every occupational, educational opportunity that I’ve been given would not have been there.”Like Mr Harkin himself, Mr Turek is quick to note something more. Mr Harkin counted on Republican allies to pass the bill. “It’s an amazing example of what we can do when we’re willing to work together,” Mr Turek says.
而这一观察揭示了另一件事：民主党内部正在进行的斗争——在中期选举后可能会更加激烈——不仅仅是“进步派”与“温和派”之间关于政策的争斗。这是一场关于如何取得进步的不同理论之间的较量。
And that observation illuminates something else: that the struggle under way within the Democratic Party, which will probably grow more heated after the midterm elections, is not just a fight over policy between “progressives” and “moderates”. It is a contest between competing theories of how to make progress.
哈金并未放弃进步派标签。他认为自己与“我的好朋友”、激进的左翼领袖伯尼·桑德斯的许多分歧属于风格问题，甚至只是用词问题，而非原则问题。他称赞图雷克不仅拥有“一份进步派议程”，而且知道“如何将其向前推进”。哈金没有指出的是，桑德斯参议员拿不出任何可与《美国残疾人法》相提并论的立法成就。
Mr Harkin is not surrendering the progressive label. He sees many of his differences with “my good friend” Bernie Sanders, the fiery leftist leader, as matters of style, even word-choice, not principle. He praises Mr Turek not only for having “a progressive agenda” but also for knowing “how to move it forward”. Mr Harkin does not note that Senator Sanders cannot point to any legislative achievement on the scale of the ADA.
自哈金离开参议院以来，“进步派”一词的含义变得更加尖锐。图雷克自称温和派。然而，与哈金一样，他也自认是草原民粹主义者，秉承那场激进农业运动的传统——该运动曾将小农场主和工会成员联合起来，对抗镀金时代的垄断势力。当图雷克谈到向亿万富翁征税、挑战大企业和提高最低工资时，他的说法与阿卜杜勒·埃尔-赛义德毫无二致；后者正在密歇根州竞选，是该党民粹左翼最引人注目的参议院候选人。
Since Mr Harkin left the Senate, “progressive” has acquired a sharper edge. Mr Turek calls himself a moderate. Yet, like Mr Harkin, he also identifies as a prairie populist, in the tradition of the radical agrarian movement that united small farmers and trade unionists against the monopolistic powers of the Gilded Age. When Mr Turek talks about taxing billionaires, challenging big corporations and raising the minimum wage, he sounds no different from Abdul El-Sayed, who is running in Michigan and is the most prominent Senate candidate of the party’s populist left.
密歇根州和艾奥瓦州的这两位候选人在政策上存在重要分歧，尽管这些分歧也可能变得模糊。图雷克表示他反对生理男性参加女子体育比赛，而埃尔-赛义德博士尚未表明立场，称此类决定应留给体育联盟。与图雷克不同，埃尔-赛义德博士希望废除移民和海关执法局，但他也表示支持执行移民法和保障边境安全。埃尔-赛义德博士支持“全民医保”，但表示他也会支持图雷克所青睐的扩大公共卫生覆盖范围的渐进式举措。埃尔-赛义德博士希望终止对以色列的军事援助；图雷克则希望对这类援助施加严格限制。
The candidates in Michigan and Iowa have important policy differences, though even those can blur. While Mr Turek says he opposes biological males competing in female sports, Dr El-Sayed has not taken a position, saying such decisions should be left to sports leagues. Unlike Mr Turek, Dr El-Sayed wants to abolish the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, yet he also says he supports applying immigration laws and securing the borders. Dr El-Sayed wants Medicare for All but says he would also back incremental expansions of public-health coverage favoured by Mr Turek. Dr El-Sayed wants to end military aid to Israel; Mr Turek would impose strict restrictions on such aid.
但两人的风格差异十分鲜明。埃尔-赛义德博士作风好斗、缺乏耐心，对民主党人也是如此。他告诉捐赠者，他可以通过把“一个怪物钉在长矛上”来恐吓与他意见相左的民主党人，这指的是宾夕法尼亚州参议员约翰·费特曼。图雷克甚至连与共和党人争斗都感到反感。埃尔-赛义德博士曾表示特朗普应当被弹劾。图雷克对此“毫无兴趣”。
But their differences of style are stark. Dr El-Sayed has a combative, impatient approach, including to Democrats. He told donors he could intimidate Democrats who differ with him by putting “one ogre on a pike”, a reference to Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania. Mr Turek recoils from fighting even with Republicans. Dr El-Sayed has said Mr Trump should be impeached. Mr Turek has “no interest” in that.
他曾说：“我们必须回归国家高于政党。”桑德斯最可能的接班人、众议员亚历山德里娅·奥卡西奥-科尔特斯最近表示，埃尔-赛义德博士的获胜将证明“任何人都能在任何地方获胜”。事实并非如此。与图雷克一样，埃尔-赛义德博士身处一场势均力敌的选战，可能会落败。但密歇根州——民主党人掌握着州长职位和两个参议院席位——本不应是这么大的挑战。
“We gotta get back to country over party,” he has said. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Mr Sanders’s likeliest heir, recently said a win by Dr El-Sayed would prove “anybody can win anywhere”. That is not so. Like Mr Turek, Dr El-Sayed is in a close race and may lose. But Michigan, where Democrats hold the governor’s office and both Senate seats, should have been less of a challenge.
更具包容性的风格，而非好斗的风格，帮助民主党人今年不仅在艾奥瓦州、还在阿拉斯加州、堪萨斯州、南卡罗来纳州和得克萨斯州重新具备了竞争力。随着民主党人转向2028年总统竞选，这一模式正是他们应当借鉴的。美国人一直在从纽约州和加利福尼亚州等民主党主导的州迁往佛罗里达州和得克萨斯州等共和党州。
The more inclusive style, rather than the combative one, has helped make Democrats competitive again this year not just in Iowa but in Alaska, Kansas, South Carolina and Texas. That model is the one Democrats should heed as they turn to the 2028 presidential campaign. Americans have been moving from Democrat-dominated states such as New York and California to Republican states including Florida and Texas.
2030年人口普查之后，国会席位和选举人票也将随之转移。扩大其选举版图对民主党人而言正成为关乎存亡的问题。这看似矛盾，而且在特朗普两极分化的总统任期最后两年里，这无疑绝非易事，但作为一个政党要想生存下去，民主党人需要减少党派色彩。
Congressional seats and electoral votes will follow along after the census in 2030. Expanding their electoral map is becoming an existential matter for Democrats. This may seem a paradox, and it will certainly be no easy feat in the last two years of Mr Trump’s polarising presidency, but to be viable as a party, Democrats need to become less partisan.
今年竞选连任、忧心忡忡的共和党人正在体会这句话对他们的意义。图雷克的对手、众议员阿什利·欣森自称是“为艾奥瓦州奋斗的两党斗士”。在10月25日曼彻斯特的一场集会上，她几乎没有提到特朗普。她说，美国人“感到自己被美国梦拒之门外”，因为“坦率地说，两党中的很多人”都“忘记了艾奥瓦人有多勤劳”。在这个全美范围内竞争激烈得令人耳目一新的选举季，最健康的结果莫过于两党共同醒悟到一个显而易见的事实：大多数选民想要的是更少的党派之争、更多的进步。■
Republicans who are running scared this year are learning their version of that lesson. Mr Turek’s opponent, Representative Ashley Hinson, is calling herself a “bipartisan fighter for Iowa”. She barely mentioned Mr Trump at a rally in Manchester on October 25th. Americans, she said, were “feeling priced out of the American dream” because “a lot of people on, frankly, both sides of the aisle” have “forgotten how hard Iowans work”. The health-iest outcome of this refreshingly competitive election season across America would be a bipartisan awakening to the obvious: that most voters want less partisanship, more progress. ■