Here's why all those booing liberals aren't as big a deal as you think

Take former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, who voiced the not-super-radical sentiment that "if we want to beat Donald Trump and achieve big progressive goals, socialism is not the answer."

This is what happened next, according to CNN's Jasmine Wright and Kyung Lah:

"Before he could get finish his next sentence, a chorus of boos along with a sea of waving 'Bernie' signs overtook his speech, lasting for more than 30 seconds. The moment prompted Hickenlooper to attempt a smile and eventually break from his remarks to add, 'You know, if we're not careful, we're going to end up helping to re-elect the worst president in history.'"

Former Maryland Rep. John Delaney got similar treatment from California Democrats when he said that "Medicare for All may sound good, but it's actually not good policy, nor is it good politics."

The boobirds were widely interpreted as bad news for former Vice President Joe Biden, who not only skipped the event but also is running as the establishment, return-to-normalcy candidate in the field. Wrote CNN's Eric Bradner:

"The tensions between former Vice President Joe Biden and liberal progressives were on full display this weekend in California, where most of the Democratic Party's presidential contenders were campaigning ..."

... His absence, however, loomed over the events in California, a delegate-rich state that has moved up its primary earlier in 2020, potentially making it much more pivotal to the nomination-selection process. Handed out at California's Democratic Convention on Sunday by the Sacramento-based activist group Action for a Progressive Future were flyers that asked: 'Where is Joe Biden?'"

Which is true-ish. There's no question that self-identified liberals are more skeptical of Biden than Democrats who view themselves as moderates or conservatives. In brand new CNN polling, Biden leads the 2020 Democratic field with 32% followed by Sanders, the Vermont senator, at 18%. No one else gets double-digit support. Among those calling themselves liberals, the race is much tighter: 25% for Biden, 24% for Sanders. Among self-identified moderates/conservative Democrats? 38% for Biden, 13% for Sanders.

But there's another nugget buried in that same CNN poll that suggests that all of those booing Democrats in California are far from the bulk of the broader Democratic Party. Asked how they would identify themselves, 43% of Democratic voters in the poll said they were liberals, while 41% said moderate and 12% described themselves as conservative. Doing the math, that means 53% of Democratic Party voters in the CNN poll say they are either moderate or conservative.

And it's not just the poll numbers that suggest the extreme liberalism on display in California over the weekend is not indicative of the national Democratic Party electorate -- or even the California Democratic electorate. Go back to the 2018 Senate race in the Golden State, where the California Democratic Party endorsed liberal state legislator Kevin de León over sitting Sen. Dianne Feinstein. De León won 65% of the vote from the 300-plus members of the state party's executive board.

Big deal, right? Nope! In the state's all-party primary, Feinstein got 2,947,039 votes (44.2%) while De Leon got 805,446 (12.1%). In November, Feinstein again cruised, beating de León by more than a million votes.

The point here is simple: Democratic presidential candidates getting booed by their alleged base makes for good headlines and great TV. But it's not necessarily reflective of where the Democratic Party writ large actually stands at the moment. This is a party in which more people consistently identify as moderate/conservative than say they are liberal. (The Upshot did a beautiful graphic representation of this reality.)

Events like this weekend's California convention -- or political Twitter basically every day -- might make you think otherwise. But that is not all of the Democratic Party. Or even the majority. Remember that as we march toward the first votes of 2020.