WASHINGTON -- The 2008 financial crisis was the most transformative event in American politics since the end of the Cold War. But while the crash fundamentally changed the way voters think about politicians, leaders in both parties have struggled to adjust their politicking to the populist currents it unleashed. That confusion at the top is forcing Debbie Wasserman Schultz to fight for her job.

Wasserman Schultz is best-known for her tumultuous tenure as chair of the Democratic National Committee. But she's also a congresswoman from a solidly liberal district in Florida. This month she drew a formidable primary challenger in Tim Canova, a law professor who studies big finance with a critical eye.

"On all these issues that I've been writing about for so many years -- trade, banking, money in politics -- she toes the Wall Street line," Canova told The Huffington Post. "People want politicians who will represent them and not sell them out."

The contest between Wasserman Schultz and Canova mirrors the internal conflict that has roiled the Democratic Party in the years following the crash. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has vaulted from a bankruptcy scholar to one of the most popular Democrats in Congress -- but many of her top legislative priorities have been thwarted by old party hands. At the presidential campaign level, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is marshaling the same anti-corporate momentum against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who most party insiders had picked to take the nomination in a walk.

But the Florida race could well reveal more about the Democratic Party than any other contest this cycle, including the one for president. There are no electability considerations for Democrats in Florida's 23rd District, which stretches from just south of Fort Lauderdale to Miami Beach. Whoever wins the Democratic nomination will make it to Congress. It's a question of whether a bald, male, not-quite-so-accomplished version of Warren can defeat a proven fundraiser with deep connections forged over the course of a decade in office. It's a test of whether progressive ideas or corporate money are more central to the Democratic Party's future.

"The progressive wing of the party -- which really used to dominate the party from Franklin Roosevelt through John Kennedy -- has mostly been taken for granted," Canova said. "Their votes are curried by the New Democrats at election time, but when it comes time to governing, they're really marginalized."

Listen to HuffPost's interview with Canova on the latest episode of the politics podcast, "So That Happened," embedded above. The segment begins at the 57:00 mark.

Many DNC chairs pass through the post without becoming household names. It's never an easy job, but nobody remembers the trials of David Wilhelm or the tribulations of Paul Kirk. Wasserman Schultz has become a national figure by screwing up. She's been panned party-wide for burying presidential debates on holiday weekends when viewership is low, a move broadly seen as an attempt to tilt the scales in favor of Clinton (Wasserman Schultz chaired Clinton's 2008 presidential run). She severely punished the Sanders campaign for exploiting the DNC's own security failures on voter data, only to reverse course a few days later. As soon as that controversy had died down, she said weird things about medical marijuana and abortion rights activists in an interview with The New York Times Magazine .

"For someone whos the head of a national party, you would think shed be better at, you know, politics," an anonymous "senior Democrat" told Bloomberg in October.

Wasserman Schultz did not respond to HuffPost's request to comment for this article.