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When Bill Clinton declared in 1996 that "the era of big government is over," Republicans felt that he was stealing their thunder. But in fact, it was the culmination of a decade-long struggle for the heart and soul of the Democratic Party. This book tells how a group of New Democrats reformed their enfeebled party's agenda, moved it toward the center, and recaptured the White House with their first two-term president since FDR.

Reinventing Democrats is the story of the Democratic Leadership Council, an elite group of elected officials, benefactors, and strategists that set out to change the public philosophy of their party. Kenneth Baer tells who they are, where they came from, what they believe in, and how they helped elect Bill Clinton--the DLC's former chairman-to the presidency.

Drawing on DLC archives and interviews with party insiders, Baer chronicles the increasing influence of the DLC from 1985 to the present. He describes battles waged between New Democrats and party liberals after the failed candidacy of Walter Mondale, and he takes readers behind the scenes in Little Rock to tell how DLC director Al From encouraged Clinton's run for the White House. He then explains how the DLC reshaped the party's agenda into a "third way" that embraced positions such as welfare reform, a balanced budget, free trade, a tough stance on crime, and a strong national defense.

In this revealing analysis of insider politics, Baer shows how a determined faction can consciously change a party's public philosophy, even without the impetus of a national crisis or electoral realignment. He also shows that the New Democrat stance exemplifies how ideas can work in synch with the political calendar to determine which specific policies find their way onto the national agenda.

If Clinton has achieved nothing else in his presidency, says Baer, he has moved his party to the center, where it stands a better chance to succeed--much to the dismay of conservatives, who feel victimized by the theft of many of their strongest issues. In a book that will engage any reader caught up in the fervor of an election year, Baer reveals the role of new ideas in shaping political stratagems and provides much food for thought concerning the future of the New Democratic philosophy, the Democratic Party, and American party politics. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

The Democratic Party's recent history and near future
Reinventing Democrats chronicles the efforts of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) to shift the Democratic Party from its liberal orientation to a more centrist position.It details the DLC's strategies, its successes and its failures up to the 2000 primaries, before the Democratic Party had selected a candidate.It makes a compelling case that the Democratic Party needs to (1) select public policies that are fiscally responsible, business friendly, and, in short, consonant with middle-class values and (2) eschew or de-emphasize policies that are attractive primarily to the party's issue-activists -- this being necessary to occupy the mainstream of American political thought and avoid becoming politically marginalized.This message is particularly relevant now (2003) that some Democrats are panicking over the 2002 mid-term election results and calling for a shift back to the left, effectively seeking to reverse the successful course set by Clinton after the disaster of the 1994 mid-term elections.

Clinton was elected on a New Democrat (i.e. DLC) platform, but he commenced to govern, or was perceived to govern, with a liberal agenda.This led to his plummeting popularity and the mid-term disaster of 1994, and at the time it appeared he would be retired after one term.Since a good scare is always more valuable than good advice, he embraced a New Democratic agenda in his second two years and, with a little help from the Republicans, he won a handy victory in 1996, vindicating the DLC in the process.In all likelihood the New Democratic philosophy (embodied in Al Gore) would have achieved further electoral vindication in 2000 but for unfortunate lapses in the Oval Office and mis-steps thereafter -- the 2000 election was close;Clinton-exhaustion seems to have been a factor.

This book narrates events in a Democratic evolution that is still taking place, and the success of which is not guaranteed.If you care about public policy and the future of the Democratic Party, or just like to look inside the political process, this book is worth a read.

Can't be missed!
A must read for anyone interested in our political system!At the dawn ofthe 21st century, the face of politics and parties is changing at analarming rate.Reinventing Democrats takes an insightful look at theunderlying truthes of government today.Baer is a thoughtful andintelligent writer who sheds light on what fuels the actions and decisionsthat affect the lives of all Americans.This book definetly can't bemissed!

Comprehensive, provacative
Whether you have a passing interest or are a true political junky, thisbook is a must read to understand America's contemporary politicallandscape. Highly recommended.

A Political Page Turner!
This book is a must read for anyone with even a passing interest in American politics.Baer tells the thrilling story of how a group of Democratic Party activists saved the party from itself and brought it backon the side of middle class values.This is the real "inside"story of how Bill Clinton became president and explains the politics of the2000 campaign better than any other book I've read.

The Answer Key for Elected Officials
This intelligent and exhaustively researched book outlines -- in a style that both political junkies and normal readers alike will find engaging -- how Bill Clinton and like-minded Democrats, for all of their foibles, trulybecame the political "comeback kids" of the late twentieth century.GeorgeW. Bush and Bill Bradley would do well to stop ignoring the lessons Baerteaches, and aspiring leaders from around the world undoubtedly will turnto this book as an answer key for the tests voters put before them onelection days. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (20)

Lessons for Any Aspiring Activist
There are dozens of political advice books in the marketplace.Most of them are filled with platitudes and blindingly simple "observations" that are wholly disconnected from any context, and of absolutely no use in the real world.This is not one of those books.Rather than trying to spoonfeed readers watered-down truisms, Witwer and Schrager weave a compelling narrative and allow readers to learn their own lessons.Because those lessons on organization, messaging, fundraising, and micro-targeting fit so easily within the context of the story, they do not feel like lessons at all.An outstanding book that will stick with you.

The Blueprint
I read this on my Kindle and I could not put it down. It was Great!

A fascinating case study on the shifting nature of politics on the whole in America
The political landscape of America is changing, and it may not be for reasons obvious. "The Blueprint: How the Democrats Won Colorado: And Why Republicans Everywhere Should Care" delves into progressive politics and why Democrats across the country are starting to take power, and how republicans may be at fault for their own loss of power. "The Blueprint" is a fascinating case study on the shifting nature of politics on the whole in America.

Beyond Colorado
Colorado has been an interesting place for politics in the last few years, but just how interesting is something that Schrager and Witwer tackle in "The Blueprint." The authors, a local political journalist and a local politician, lay out the political landscape in clear terms and tell Colorado's political story in narrative form. Most importantly, they aim to tell the most important story of all: how the Democrats have turned the state's politics in the past few years.

I started reading because I am interested in my home state's politics, but I kept reading because this story matters even outside of Colorado. The Democratic party unified in Colorado and the authors reiterate that other states are following suit. Soon, which others will find success? It was hard for me to believe that a deeply red state, like where I live now in Oklahoma, could be influenced by the new infrastructure. Schrager and Witwer show that it doesn't just have to be a state's citizens to transform its politics; a national organization, supported by those who want to see it succeed, can truly transform campaigns and elections on all levels.

Schrager and Witwer not only weave the facts into a gripping story, they use interviews, election research, and history to do so. The unbelievable situation is made more concrete when key players, on all sides, are not only mentioned, but included in the book. The evidence is remarkable and truly forms the case that the Democratic party has shifted. The implications of that in Colorado are astounding, but the effects on other state organizations and the national party seem to be right around the corner.

It will be interesting to see how this book informs how the 2010 elections. Even more so, it will be interesting to see the story continue to unfold.

A must read for political junkies and the apolitical alike
I thoroughly enjoyed this book for several reasons.It was good to see quotes from players from both sides of the political spectrum - including the kudos for the book itself from the Left and the Right (Huttner and Hewitt on the front jacket).But my take on it and the subject matter is that it's much more damming on and to the Left.

Through admissions of those on the Left, they blow away the old (and incorrect) notion that Democrats are for the "people" and Republicans are for the "money or businesses".This "model", and others popping up nationwide because of it, centered around four mega-rich individuals that decided they were going to buy a state legislature.They admit to telling others within the big tent that is the Democratic Party to put aside their ideology and infighting (which would include policy ideas and principles) and "buy in to win".The success of this model had everything to do with money (and not from the little people) and nothing to do with debate of the issues or why one way is better than the other.

The book also reminded me of the attitude these people had towards the voters, "educate the idiots" ring a bell?That was them.And within this story you can see the birth of "astroturf", as the ground game they conducted was not volunteers trying to get principled leaders that they believed in to win office - they were paid canvassers with PocketPC's collecting data and information for a much larger machine.

The timing of this book makes the swagger these people display all the more humorous.THEY have displayed in the last few years the same traits they derided Republicans for, like overreaching for example.Just keep this book and this story in mind when you are bombarded with expensive ads in the next 2 election cycles, and who's behind it.And vote accordingly. ... Read more

Product Description
Although labor unions have faced a decline in membership in recent decades, they have not necessarily lost their political clout. This timely book illuminates the inner dynamics of labor's relationship to the American political system over the past generation. It examines organized labor from the Johnson administration to the end of Clinton's first term, showing that labor's alliance with the Democratic Party has endured despite changes in the economy and the revival of conservatism.

Drawing on extensive interviews with union leaders and lobbyists, Taylor E. Dark provides a historical perspective often lacking in studies of union political involvement. He compares the relationship of presidents Johnson, Carter, and Clinton with labor and analyzes cases of union involvement in legislative lobbying, executive decision-making, and both congressional and presidential elections.

The book explores such topics as the effects of political reform on union power, the development of union legislative goals, and the impact of unions on economic policymaking, and also evaluates the controversy over union campaign spending in the 1996 elections. It demonstrates that labor's evolving alliance with the Democrats continues to shape America.

For Taylor Dark's update on unions and democrats, please visit his website at http://members.aol.com/oscuro/index.html ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Comprehensive text
Covers pretty much everything about unions in national politics from the early 1960s to 2001, with a strong argument for the resiliency of the union/Democrat alliance.

An excellent work on unions in American politics
This book provides a thorough and well-written account of the role of labor unions in the Democratic party since the 1960s.I found its argument that the unions were more effective than commonly believed to be quiteinteresting and (mostly) convincing.Simply put, this is the mostcomprehensive and detailed book on this subject currently available, andshould be the starting point for all future discussions of union politicalactivity.The chapters on Congress and on the Clinton administration wereespecially good at overturning some commonly-held notions about a break inunion/Democrat relations.

This work should be of interest not only toacademics, but also to union activists and anyone interested in the currentnature of Democratic party coalitions.

A useful antidote to the wishful thinking of labor activists
*The Unions & the Democrats* is a decisive rejoinder to those who claim American labor is in a period of resurgence and renewal.In fact, as Professor Dark amply illustrates, labor's role as an adjunct to theDemocrat Party has remained consistent over the years, fending offchallenges from 'Left' and 'Right' alike, so far as those terms have anyreal meaning in the lexicon of reformist American politics.The book isespecially strong on the period since 1964, when American labor came intoits own, emerging from its anti-Communist past to actively promoteDemocratic party values from the war in Vietnam to civil rights, all thewhile remaining firm as an agency of class control.The fundamentalrelationship between the labor movement and the Democrats remains, asProfessor Dark is happy to remind us, fundamentally unchanged.

There is,too, excellent sections detailing the controversy surrounding laborspending during the 1996 presidential campaign and the effect of 'NewDemocrats' like Clinton to better 'rationalize' the union/Democratrelationship.In fact, an argument can be made that Clinton himself betterexemplifies the values of the traditional union member than his more'activist' counterparts.Professor Dark's conclusions will challenge, infact, a number of activists' sacred cows, though in an even-handed and fairmanner.

Anyone looking for a good resume of 'New Labor' and itspossibilities would be well-served by reading *The Unions & theDemocrats*.Pay special attention to section on contemporary organizing. Professor Dark himself appears a likely candidate for the new type of unionmember, seeming as he is one of many 'casual' workers in the new non-tenureacademic workplace.

A good overview of sources is included, many of whichsuggest avenues for future research. ... Read more

Product Description
At the end of Reconstruction, the old order reasserted itself, to varying degrees, throughout the former Confederate states. This period--Redemption, as it was called--was crucial in establishing the structures and alliances that dominated the Solid South until at least the mid-twentieth century.

Texas shared in this, but because of its distinctive antebellum history, its western position within the region, and the large influx of new residents that poured across its borders, it followed its own path toward Redemption.

Now, historian Patrick G. Williams provides a dual study of the issues facing Texas Democrats as they rebuilt their party and of the policies they pursued once they were back in power. Treating Texas as a southern but also a western and a borderlands state, Williams has crafted a work with a richly textured awareness unlike any previous single study. Students of regional and political history will benefit from Williams' comprehensive view of this often overlooked, yet definitive era in Texas history. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

a very different Democratic party
Williams takes us back to the decades after the US Civil War, to look at how the Texas Democratic party struggled to cope with Reconstruction.Not a wonderful picture. We see how the Democrats strenuously opposed civil rights for Negroes. This is the main theme throughout the book. To build up their support amongst whites, the Democrats engaged repeatedly in racist demagogy. Which also included diatribes against Mexicans and Latino citizens.

But not just that. Much of the book documents the maneuverings against the federal government, and many ways, often successful, in which the Democrats took control of the judiciary and local governments.

There are also other threads running through the book. As in fighting native tribes resisting incursions into their lands. ... Read more

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With just over 18% of the vote in the 1992 Election, the Liberal Democrats failed to secure a balance of power but demonstrated, nonetheless, the persistence of the third party as a force in British politics. In this study of the parties and personalities of the centre, John Stevenson traces the fortunes of the third party in all its forms, from 1945 to the present. Beginning with a brief pre-history of the post-war Liberal Party, and its steady electoral eclipse by Labour, John Stevenson then charts the near demise of the third party in the 1940s and 1950s under Clement Davies. He next examines the slow but steady revival of the Liberals in the years of Jo Grimond, from 1956 through to 1967, and beyond, to the dramatic series of by-election victories in 1972-3, as a renewed Liberal Party under Jeremy Thorpe once again exerted an influence on the politics of Britain. Thorpe's resignation and the 1977 Lib-Lab pact take the story up to the formation of the Social Democratic Party and the subsequent Alliance, in 1981. Following the fate of the Alliance from 1981 to 1987, the author then traces the emergence of a new third force: the Social and Liberal Democrats.In a conclusion, he assesses the prospects for the future of the third party in the light of the 1992 General Election. ... Read more

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Political consultant and commentator Patrick Hynes dispels common stereotypes and misapprehensions about the most powerful political constituency in the country while undertaking the most exhaustive effort yet to define what the Religious Right is, what its members believe, and why they are right. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (16)

The worst book I've read in many years
Do not waste your time with this book.I had to read it for a social ethics class and I am throwing it away as soon as possible.Hynes defends the Religious Right from a political standpoint - not from a theological or ethical standpoint.He basically wants to defend them because he is a Republican and wants their votes.He does not talk about the actual issues at all.

Molding Christian Hegemony Into Republican Policy
This is not a scholarly take on the ascendancy of the Conservative Christian movement in American politics.It is, as you could divine from the title, a book targeted to that segment of the Conservative Christian community who would agree that America would be a better place, if only...

Hynes' book is slanted significantly towards that audience.If you're a church-going Christian AND have voted Republican, you'll find a great deal that appeals to you.Everyone else?Well, Hynes uses some fairly strong language ("faker," "fraud," "Liberal Theocrat") to construct archetypes of non-Conservative Christian Republicans in order to dismiss their political goals and ideals as anything from disingenuous to downright dangerous.

Through the use of polling data and post-election demographic breakdowns, Hynes makes the case that the Christian hegemony represents the mainstream opinion on nearly all important social issues, and since (he states) the Conservative Christian voting bloc is the "biggest" voting bloc in our country, it is up to Conservative Christians to work through the Republican Party to defeat the non-mainstream, "marginal," or "fringe" policies being advocated by those who don't.

Since this is not a serious, scholarly dissection of the Conservative Christian movement, it goes to follow that a self-professed "liberal" reading this book would find some of Hynes' tactics - such as constructing straw men and engaging in the demogoguery of Hollywood and Bill Clinton - to be the sort of easy and cheap arguments more at home in a right-wing blog than in a Poli Sci textbook.If, however, you find yourself of the opinion that the political policies of the "Democrat Party" (sic) are a danger to the moral fiber of American life, you might find a great deal in this book with which you agree.

Clear confirmation of how 'right' the Religious Right is
Patrick Hynes sent me his book to read and review. No other compensation was offered or received.

Pat presents us with clear, accurate analysis of political behavior by those called 'the Religious Right'. As a non-practicing but informed Catholic who is politically to the right of Attilla the Hun, I expected more along the lines of 'Here's why southern baptists really aren't crazies..."
Because of course, the main stream (leftist) media paints them as crazies.
But Pat takes a different approach. He descibes voting patterns, geographic locations and 'kitchen table' political positions and ties that to people of faith and how we should expect them to vote and act. And then he shows us that is exactly what did (and will) happen. He also lays out how the MSM images of a 3rd grade drop-out red neck as 'the religious right' are deeply flawed.
Since I'm not religious I had not heard of 'small groups' before - but I now find them a fascinating part of American politics. The ways these small groups contribute to the red state picture is quite remarkable - and given just a little thought, inevitable.
Mr. Hynes analysis is so rational, so clear and so well researched you will find yourself saying 'yeah, of course' over and over. Anyone to the right of center knows that people of faith deserve respect. The derision and hatred generated by the left is not rational, open-minded or useful. Hedonists and secularists turn their fear of being in the wrong into intolerance for those who would not join the debauchery.
The Constitution does guarantee freedom 'from' religion as too many of the hate mongers from the ACLU would have you believe.

Now I have good news and bad news for the socialists/communists/daily Kos/DNC types out there.
The bad news is you cannot fool people of faith into thinking you are now, ever were, or ever will be on their side.
Howard Dean's fanaticism and madcap attempts to 'bring them along' are as doomed as his wacko bid for the Presidency was. The left has used (and vigorously tries to maintain) the ignorance of its voting base. Since they consider the religious to be ignorant, they also assume the religious are just one more special interest to pander to.
Sorry Hillary.
Reading this book will NOT help a democrat reach the religious - because what you think is ignorant, they know is faith.

But the good news? There is a mistake in this book!!!
That's right, no doubt a Karl Rove plot of the highest order - right there on page 159 - Pat identifies the Vice President in 1988 as none other than 'George W. Bush'.
Clearly a savvy political operative like Hynes would never have this happen as a typo, so moonbats of the sphere - RUN WITH IT!
He must be trying to legitimize W.
Crazy huh?

A Good Book, Perhaps Written Too Soon
I was given a copy of this book to review as a result of a posting on Mr. Hynes' website. Having read it, I wish I had several copies to give to both Christian and liberal friends!

In many ways, this was a good book to write at this time, but I also felt that some of the material was too close to the present (i.e. the 2004 election and aftermath) to get a proper perspective.

I was a little taken back by the way this book opens, it didn't seem to go anywhere at first. However, over the course of the book, the material was covered very well for the size the book is. (240 pages)

The author spends much time on the 2004 and 1994 elections, but also goes right back to the beginning of the American republic showing the history of the USA is not quite what people nowadays seem to assume. He pulls apart the history of the "separation of church and state" within American history very well, and shows that what the Religious Right nowadays push for is not very remarkable at all.

He spends a lot of time showing that the RR is solid, longstanding and absolutely not out of the mainstream of American society. Rather, the msm have taken great pains to spin events to make this the common perception. Terri Schiavo is a case in point: "70%" of Americans thought that the federal government should not get involved at all, 63% wanted her to die, but when the question was framed in terms of her actual condition, 80% wanted her to live.

Unfortunately, most people outside of America only get this view - the CNN, BBC, NY Times, etc. Most have no idea as to what is really going on in heartland USA. New Zealand has a quite similar history (with several major cities and universities being founded by religious people) but only in America have conservative Christians been strong enough to overcome the intense criticism these movements generate and found a voice as themselves rather than as members of other groups.

Practice makes perfect...
...or at least contributes to readability.Patrick Hynes blogs daily at anklebitingpundits.com and the it shows in this book.He zips through his points without the usual tedious filler that makes so much political writing difficult to sort through.Instead, his ideas are presented, properly supported, and restated in light of the evidence.Finally, he gathers his smaller points in support of his larger conclusion.He knows how to construct an essay.If you've been vaguely (or specifically)dissatisfied at the incomplete analyses of values voters in recent and future elections, you'll be interested in Hynes' book, which fleshes out this issue substantially.If you are a religious person who has wondered about your own role in politics, you'll also find the book useful.I was slightly put off by the use of the term "Religious Right", (mostly because we're all so brainwashed to think it means knuckle-dragging, racist, homophobic moron), but he handles my objection adroitly in his introduction.Disclosure:I got a free copy of the book in exchange for agreeing to review it. ... Read more

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A study of the German Social Democratic party since 1969. It covers social democracy, labour, political parties, the politics of the Left and German politics in a changing Europe. ... Read more

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This is a pioneering comparative study of the early years of the British Labour Party and the German Social Democratic Party. Drawing on a wealth of primary sources in both countries, Berger argues that the traditional view of deep-seated cultural and ideological differences between the two labor movements must be revised.His controversial conclusions will open up a new perspective on old debates. ... Read more

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Mayer argues that Democrats have greater difficulty maintaining party unity than do Republicans. ... Read more

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This study is concerned with the role of intellectuals in left-wing parties, focusing on the case of the social democratic intellectuals in the Labour Party. It suggests that at the core of Labour's paralysis lies the fact that Labour still lacks a coherent strategy, and that it has failed to resolve the ambiguities about its identity and ideology which have plagued it over more than two decades, and which were at the root of the SDP split. The disintegration of the SDP project in the last decade only serves to underline one of the basic propositions of the book - that the SDP was the terminal manifestation of a particular intellectual project, rooted in the Labour Party rather than the "mould breaking" beginning it was presented (and accepted) as being. ... Read more

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This work is concerned with the realignment of progressive political forces in Britain. It focuses on the relationship between the Liberal, and then Liberal Democrats and the Labour parties, and seeks to provide an understanding of the factors which have created the potential for the realignment of the centre-left of the political spectrum and the forces which have historically impeded its attainment. This authoritative account of the British left and centre since the nineteenth century offers useful background for late 20th-century politics. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

What's the Matter with the Democrats? Pete Brown knows!
Published in 1991, the subtitle belies the incredible predictive accuracy of the content of the book. Pete Brown's amazingly prescient tome was a victim, unfortunately, of a perfect storm of unlikely political events:

1. The nomination of the charismatic Bill Clinton in the Democratic primaries, the least-liberal Democrat to get the nomination since John F. Kennedy.

2. The third-party candidacy of H. Ross Perot, who drew mostly from likely Bush voters (the Reform Party's, and many liberals', absurd protestations to the contrary not withstanding), in addition to spending most of his war chest attacking Bush, and getting lavish, anti-bush coverage from a media who clearly saw Perot as a greater threat to Bush than Clinton and

3. The bottoming out of a minor recession just around election time, giving both Clinton and Perot ample ammunition with which to attack the elder Bush.

But the bigger victim in this story would have to be the Democratic party, which was allowed and even encouraged to perpetuate the idea that there was nothing fundamentally wrong with their political strategies or their message, that Reagan and Bush had been a fluke and then that 1994 was a fluke. And then that 2000 was a fluke. If the Democrats had read Pete Brown's research and taken even some--not all, mind you, just some--of his advice back before 1992, they would be a much more successful party at the polls right now.

Indeed, even the event that would seem to disprove his primary thesis that the Democrats face perpetual defeat at the ballot box if they don't take on fundamental change--the twice-election of Bill Clinton to the presidency--is simply the exception that proves the rule. In fact, published well before the 1992 primaries, Clinton is often quoted in Minority Party as the sort of candidate who understands what it takes to win national office. It was, arguably, doing just the sort of things Peter Brown suggests, that, along with the presence of Perot, that propelled Clinton to the top. Clinton demonstrated that he was empathetic with the middle class, not just the poor. He argued for a middle-class tax-cut (that he ultimately didn't deliver). Although he did raise taxes on small businesses once in office, he was not rhetorically anti-business the way so many Democrats still are. He rhetorically, if not practically, supported the idea of smaller government. He repudiated anti-white reverse racism in his "Sistah Souljah" moment. With the exception of tackling gays in the military and nationalized healthcare, Bill Clinton governed as a moderate Democrat, and that helped him in 1996 and almost brought Al Gore into the Whitehouse in 2000. All that could well have been cribbed from Pete Brown's book--and is just the sort of advice that has been ignored by the Democrats ever since.

As a political junkie, one of the topics that fascinates me the most is why the Democrats and, more broadly, why the left just doesn't "get it". While there are a number of conservative books tackling the often fascinating ways the Democrats don't get it, the fundamental "why" they don't get it--and the often convulated mechanics of "how"--often get short shrift.

So I was pleased to find Minority Party in the political section at my local library, and was in fact attracted by the unfortunate subtitle: "Why the Democrats Face Defeat in 1992 and Beyond". Having recently read Thomas Franks 2004 What's the Matter With Kansas and an endless supply of recent news articles and punditry on what the Democrats had to do to regain their majority status, I was interested in seeing what the perspective was in 1991, after 12 years of Reagan/Bush but before 8 years of Clinton.

At first blush, I thought the book was going to deal exclusively with the Democrats and their tremendous dependence on racial appeals for their electoral chances. While it does deal with the Democrats and race exhaustively, there's a lot more to Minority Party than that. In fact, I hadn't gotten very far before I began to be impressed both with Brown's prescience--for all practical purposes, he predicts the eventual Republican take-over of the house and senate--and how familiar so much of it sounded. For the Democrats, it seems, the more things change, the more they stay the same. No matter how much good advice they receive to the contrary.

Brown writes:

"A survey in the spring of 1989 by a consortium of the Democratic party's best polling minds found that the Democratic argument that their electoral ineptness was due to the candidate, not their message, was flat-out wrong.
The insight provided by this analysis? Ignored by the Democratic party. And yet it sounds so familiar, even today. 'We're just not getting our message out,' is still a common Democrat refrain."

If the message was and is the problem with the Democratic party, what can they do about it? Ah, there's the rub. A point reinforced repeatedly in Minority Party that goes straight to the logistical problem the Democrats will continue to have: it's the left that dominates the presidential nomination process, it's the northeast that, geographically, has the most significance in picking the Democratic candidate. And many of the people particpating at the "grass roots" level of the Democratic primary process are about as out-of-touch with average, ordinary Americans and the middle-class white guy as you can possibly get.

Peter Brown quotes moderate Democrat Evan Bayh, discussing a conference he held with local Democratic business people and wealthy contributors (expecting he could find supporters of his desire to moderate the traditional Democratic enthusiasm for tax-and-spend social engineering):

"'I asked for questions and the first hand that went up, the individual said, "Governor, I think the most important issue of the nineties and the years beyond will be animal rights and I want to know what your position is on that."' Bayh said, with part chuckle and part dismay.

"Were that an isolated instance of Democratic insiders being out of touch, the chuckle could win out. But in truth, those people who are at the core of the Democratic party--blacks, unions, government workers, issue activists--think different than most Americans."


And, he goes on to note, those people end up nominating the candidate.

A great illustration of the Democrats (and, let's be honest, most politicians') desire to avoid responsibility for the ineffective use, or abuse, of the power they are so eager to obtain, can be found in Brown's examination of how the Willie Horton add hurt the Dukakis campaign:

"At first Dukakis ignored the Horton issue, accurately claiming that a president has little to do with state furlough programs. But soon even his own people saw the political weakness of their case."

Even now, I have to shake my head. I am astounded by the arrogance of an individual seeking an elective office, much less an entire campaign, that would essentially maintain that the candidate shouldn't be held responsible for his poor performance or the negative consquences of his bad ideas in the past, because he wouldn't be responsible for those sorts of programs as president! Although Brown showed restraint and let the statement speak for itself, I've got to elaborate: there is no greater illustration of how out-of-touch the candidate was--not just with the electorate, but with reality--that he would expect that his past decisions to let dangerous criminals out of the prison for weekend excursions should have had no bearing on his candidacy because he wouldn't have been administering those sorts of state furlough programs as president!

I am reminded (entertainment geek that I am) of the Simpson's episode where Sideshow Bob runs against the embattled Mayor Quimby (in a parody inspired by the Willie Horton ads):

"Mayor Quimby supports revolving door prisons. Mayor Quimby even released Sideshow Bob -- a man twice convicted of attempted murder.

"Can you trust a man like Mayor Quimby? Vote Sideshow Bob for mayor."


Yet, in the real world, it was Dukakis who, though responsible for a tremendous, indefinsible lapse in administrative judgement--tried to transfer the blame to Bush and the American voter, accusing the Bush team of clearly non-existent racism (the Bush campaign never indicated Horton's race; that was a private effort) and, by default, anyone who would consider voting for him.

Brown summarizes the success of that strategy thusly:

"It didn't take. The average voters just didn't go for the Democratic, liberal-guilt mindset. They just plain didn't feel guilty for being scared of black criminals and of perceiving them as a serious problem."

In fact, Brown writes, middle-class white America has grown to resent the constant invocation of the race card by the Democrats. And even some Democrats--in 1991--saw it.

"'They have a right to resent it,' Leiberman claims.

"'Most of these people consider themselves decent law-abiding people who are not racist. They don't like to be demeaned by a bunch of fancy-pants, self-righteous politicians who think they understand what motivates people.'"

Yet, most of the Democrat leadership--then as now--didn't want to face the reality that they were alienating the white middle-class. As Brown writes:

"In early 1991, the Leadership Conference of Civil Rights . . . asked Stan Greenberg's firm--who else?--to gauge the problem.

"When the report found what Greenberg had been reporting for years--that many whites believed civil rights advocates wanted special preferences for minorities rather than equal opportunities for all--in the finest American tradition of Democratic liberals, the group buried the document and ignored the public attitudes it documented."

I find this interesting. You cannot accuse the modern day Republican party of ignoring demographics (indeed, only the country-club quasi-liberal Republicans--often called Rockefeller Republicans--tend to want to ignore political reality these days, and they are shrinking in number and power in the national Republican Party). And what Democrat was often critiqued by the right for poll-testing everything? Of constantly floating trial balloons? While it may have been cynical, it was evidence that Bill Clinton--who was elected president--understood that you just don't ignore (or worse, publically condemn) public attitudes.

Brown hammers on the theme of Democrats incorrectly believing there is nothing wrong with the message, it's just the messenger:

"Jesse Jackson was speaking in March of 1989 at the Democratic Leadership Council's annual conference . . . He could have been any one of countless Democratic liberals from the last decade . . . offering the same false tune that dominated party thinking.

"There was nothing wrong with the Democratic message: once the millions of nonvoting poor and minorities were brought to the polls, happy days would be here again. But something was missing--a party candidate and a message that would excite these non-voters."

Brown goes on to dismantle that argument, using basic logic and a wealth of census and population data. Unlike the Democratic pundits who assert they are losing because "they aren't getting their message out" or that they'll win if they can only "mobilize the youth vote", Brown uses solid data--election returns, demographics--to illustrate how unrealistic such arguments are, when viewed in the light of actual data. And while Democrats can ignore such data when they talk amongst themselves, and when they guest on the Sunday shows, and even during much of the primary process, it will catch up with them on election day. Because no amount of fantasizing is going to change the real technological, electoral, and demographic trends that are in play. And fourteen years later, the Democrats have been proven wrong again and again, and Brown has been proven right.

My favorite part of the book is the summation, in which Brown prescribes the sorts of things the Democrats need to do to remain viable (ironically, it would appear that the Republicans have been taking his advice for the past fourteen years while the Democrats have been ignoring it). Before he gets into his wise, and generally unheeded advice, he goes over some very familiar territory. It's eerie, really, just how familiar.

He quotes Mark Shields, whose description of the Democrats near-universal reaction to electoral loss was exactly true in 1991, and is still just as true today, fourteen years later (emphasis added):

"... The Democrats continually go through the four stages of losing campaigns.

"First, they blame the candidate--a common Democratic practice since 1972. Democratic leaders seem to believe that George McGovern, Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, and Michael Dukakis magically appeared before the country as the Democratic nominees who could not win in November. They never acknowledge that these candidates reflect Democratic primary voters' out-of-touch views.

"Secondly, Democrats blame the voters--and have for almost two decades. Shields saw it in 1972 when he was national political director of Ed Muskie's intially popular campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. After a loss to George Wallace in the Florida primary, Muskie turned to a phalanx of television cameras and blamed his defeat on the voters poor judgement . . .

"Thirdly, losers look for a gimmick--any gimmick. It is one more instance of the same ample evidence of Democratic self-delusions. They insist that their problems can be papered over . . . the geneder gap . . . mobilization theory . . . trying to get state legislatures to change the way their electoral votes were cast . . .

"Finally, says Shields, comes the overwehleming desire to find a winner, regardless of who the candidate is, whatever his or her message. Dukakis, a bland man whose form of static liberalism satisfied neither Democratic liberals nor moderates, fit that description to perfection. After all, this candidate was cheered by the 1988 Democratic convention when he said the campaign was 'not about ideology but about competence'."

Leaving aside the wisdom of Dukakis trying to compete on competence, doesn't that all sound familiar? All the pundits during the 2004 election cycle poo-pooed conservatives and moderate commentators who talked about John Kerry as Dukakis redux. Yet isn't it all awfully familiar?

Brown writes:

"But the Democratic problem is not that the overwhelming number of white, middle-class voters don't undersand what the party is saying. The problem is the voters understand quite clearly. And they don't agree."

He had it nailed, 13 years ago. A very good read, and more than worth the used price. ... Read more

Product Description
Yellow Dogs and Fruit Flies is a short book that packs a lot of information.It provides in-depth, how we got in the mess we are in today, and lays much of the blame squarely on the conservative democrats out there who have allowed the extreme liberal wing of our party, to Hi-Jack the rest of us.Our Democratic Party has been so busy trying to entice non-producing Americans to vote and win elections, that we have lost track of who the party was formed to serve.The democratic party was not formed to support poor people, it was formed to give the working class representation in government. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Junior Scholastic, published by Scholastic, Inc. on October 4, 2004. The length of the article is 1007 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: The life of the parties: why do we have Democrats and Republicans?(The parties: election 2004)
Author: Sean Price
Publication: Junior Scholastic (Magazine/Journal)
Date: October 4, 2004
Publisher: Scholastic, Inc.
Volume: 107Issue: 3Page: 12(2)

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A provocative study of Democrats in the Progressive Era
American politics during the first two decades of the 20th century are typically presented in the context of two major themes: the Progressive reform movement and the national dominance of the Republican Party, with Republican politicians such as Theodore Roosevelt and Robert La Follette typically seen as the dominant political force behind Progressivism on the national stage.In this book, David Sarasohn challenges the assumptions of the second theme in describing the role of the Democratic Party in the first, arguing that it was in fact the Democrats who were the main party promoting Progressive reforms in national politics in this period.

The main figure behind the party's focus on these reforms, Sarasohn argues, was William Jennings Bryan.Though thrice defeated in his bids for the presidency, as the dominant force in Democratic party politics during this period Bryan was able to commit the national party to a range of antitrust measures and social reforms.Such support, he posits, was essential to the passage of Theodore Roosevelt's legislative agenda and promoted William Howard Taft to pursue a vigorous antitrust effort as president.It was this support that made the Democrats the beneficiaries of the Progressive surge in the 1912 election, which Sarasohn asserts would have been won by Woodrow Wilson even without the Republican Party's split that year.Sarasohn goes on to credit the Democratic majorities in Congress with many of the major Progressive achievements of Wilson's first term in office, even going so far as to claim that the president's successful reelection in 1916 was more the consequence of this effort than the Wilson's own achievements.

Sarasohn's book is a provocative challenge to much of the traditional historical interpretation of politics during the Progressive Era.While some of his arguments are less well supported than others, they force the reader to reconsider the motive forces behind reform on the national political scene.Nobody interested in the Progressive movement, or in the politics of the period, can afford to pass on reading this lively and challenging study, which sheds light on some often overlooked political dynamics of the era. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Waste of Money
This is an uncreative, unfunny list - a jumble of isolated words and quotations that are intended to bring laughter (I suppose) but which quickly become tedious and oppressive.

A real waste of time and money asis its companion volume - 888 reasons to Hate Republicans. ... Read more

Product Description
A look at the political awakening that occurred in America's Silicon Valley in the late 1990s, this text offers analyses of, among other things, the "digital divide" and the nuances of party subdivisions. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

fascinating slice of intersecting worlds
As someone who was marginally involved in this relationship from the DC side of things, I found Miles' revelation of the view from the other coast very interesting.For me the key to any book, regardless of the subject matter,is the author's writing ability.Sara Miles' style is extremely engaging, without ever seeming obtrusive or affected.She also seems to have good instincts, and to know the right questions to raise in response to what she's hearing.If I have any criticism, it is that she while she is basically well informed and bright, at times she seems naive about the overall political context in which she is writing, and misses somemajor elements of the political dance she is documenting.On the other hand, a more traditional political journalist would probably not have been able to present the Silicon valley end of things as perceptively.Overall, a good read about the clash of egos and norms when two very different cultures interact.I wish she would write a sequel.

Insightful!
Sara Miles unfolds a political saga as if it were a gripping novel. The story begins with political activist Wade Randlett, who forged a coalition of Silicon Valley’s leading tech CEOs and venture capitalists to support the New Democrats. Miles starts with Randlett’s arrival in the Valley. She shows how, in 1996, Randlett lined up Bill Clinton’s opposition to Proposition 211 (allowing uncapped suits against high-tech companies), helping to swing many apolitical or Republican tech leaders to the New Democrats. Miles traces the Valley’s growing relationship with Clinton, Gore and other New Dems, which held up until the rise of George W. Bush. Miles’ fascinating story may seem like ancient history (though it’s only 1996 to 2000) now that the dot-com storms have diluted the New Economy’s power. Otherwise, we at ... strongly recommend this intriguing look at a particular patch of political history, when the New Economy was strong, and everybody wanted to be a friend of the Valley.

quixotic task
Sara Miles is a San Francisco based journalist who has covered the nexus of politics and technology for the NY Times and Wired magazine. When her work in Silicon Valley brought her into contact with Wade Randlett, a manic Democratic fund raiser and self described passionate centrist, who had decided to make it his mission to bring together the New Democrats with the entrepreneurs of the New Economy, she recognized the makings of a good story.

I saw Wade Randlett as the guy who could be the pivot point for the major political realignmentthat was under way in the Democratic Party.He wasn't the most important figure in politics orhigh tech by any means, but he occupied an incredibly interesting position bridging the two.WhatRandlett represented was nothing as predictable as a political organization or a business entity; hearticulated a political sensibility that was new, as yet uninstitutionalized, and utterly of themoment.His intelligence, his shrewdness, and his unfettered ambition made him someone wellworth following.If the Democrats were going to be able to claim high tech as their own, and ifSilicon Valley was going to choose the Democrats to represent its interests, I was sure Randlettwould be there at the center of things.If I kept track of him, I thought, I'd be able to watch theconnection happen.

Beginning in 1996 she followed Randlett as he embarked on his patently absurd quest, working through two successive trade associations--the California Technology Alliance and TechNet--to purchase Democratic loyalty with high tech money, and she put her access to good effect in this insider's account of the doomed courtship.

Why absurd ?Why doomed ?Well, Randlett's, and the author's. basic premise was that the election of Bill Clinton represented a genuine shift to the center by the Democratic Party, which with a little encouragement, mostly financial, might become the official party of the High Tech economy and, thereby, dominate American politics for a generation, in the same way that it had after FDR and the New Deal.They believed that :

The New Democrats who triumphed with Clinton in 1992 were a perfect match for entrepreneurswhose bedrock conviction was that the rules of the market guided all human endeavor.SiliconValley businessmen acted as if they believed that money was the universal and only accuratestandard of measurement in the world.They seemed to think that the question Does it maximizeshareholder value ? meant the same thing as Is it morally right?Efficiency, in their world, hadbecome worth; wealth was proof of rightness.And so the industry whose most influentialspokesmen insisted that ideology was dead met the party whose President had no apparent ideology,a party that took their money and hailed them as the future.

Clinton's election in 1992 confirmed the DLC's [Democratic Leadership Council's] belief that itsNew Democratic politics were gaining ground--and that it was attracting a "core" of businesssupport.

Some of their confusion, as expressed above, is understandable given the unique circumstances of the Clinton presidency, but the rest is a product of simple historical ignorance.

Bill Clinton's presidential campaign and subsequent election in 1992 were sufficiently remarkable that folks can be forgiven for misunderstanding them.After all, conventional wisdom by the late 1980's had determined that the Democrats were the institutional party of Congress, and that Republicans had a hammerlock on the Presidency. When Bill Clinton, a former head of the DLC, positioned himself as a New Democrat, ran against most of the Party's traditional constituencies, and actually won, it was possible to interpret his victory as a triumph for a new brand of Democratic politics, more conservative on social issues, especially crime, though still relatively pro-abortion, and more favorable to business and economic growth than the Party had been in the past.

Despite a lackluster or even incompetent cabinet overall (think Ron Brown, Henry Cisneros, Janet Reno, Donna Shalala, Mike Espy, Les Aspin, Warren Christopher, etc.), he did surround himself with the most conservative group of economic advisors of any Democratic president : Lloyd Bentsen, the old Al Gore, Alice Rivlin, Robert Rubin, and Leon Panetta.In addition, he paid obeisance to Alan Greenspan, even though tight-money Federal Reserve chairmen have been historic whipping boys of the Democratic Party.Together, this group pushed him towards the right on spending issues and encouraged him to sign the two Reagan era free trade bills, NAFTA and GATT, which finally made it to fruition on his watch.Outwardly at least, one could argue that the potential existed then for a paradigm shift, with the Democrats, already closer to libertarianism than Republicans on social issues, now co-opting the GOP's more libertarian pro-business positions.This "new" politics of the Democrats might have been particular attractive to Silicon Valley's whiz kids, who tended towards a kind of libertarianism, which made them uncomfortable with the Republican Party's anti-abortion, anti-gay policies. The problem is that it was never a realistic platform for the Democrats to adopt, as soon became obvious.

Things began to unravel with the Health Care debacle.David Gergen argues, I think convincingly, that when the original Troopergate story broke Clinton was forced to yield control over Health Care to Hilary as a price for his infidelity.She steered the plan in the direction of old style Democratic politics and left him in the position of defending policies that ran counter to everything else he was trying to do.Republicans then draped the plan around his neck and, even more unbelievably than his winning the presidency, took over both houses of Congress for the first time in forty years.the ranks of moderate Democrats were decimated because they came from swing districts which Republicans had carried.What remained of the Democrats was a rump party of the unreconstructed hard left, which Clinton wisely distanced himself from, at the behest of Dick Morris.This did suffice to win him another term, using Morris's strategy of triangulation to portray himself as the only man who could hold back the worst excesses of conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats.

Then came impeachment and the effective death of even Clinton as a "New Democrat."With only the Democrats in the House and political activists on television to defend him, Clinton was forced to curry favor with the Left wing (by then the only wing) of the Party.Once arguably moderate, he became an enemy of tax cuts, deregulation, school vouchers, partial privatization of Social Security, and other proposals of the Republican Party, most of which had been supported in a general way by New Democrats like Joe Lieberman.The Left saved his hide and he paid them back by accepting their agenda unquestioningly.

Any remaining illusions that the New Democrat ideology had a future in the Party were obliterated as first Al Gore and then Lieberman jettisoned every single moderate position they had ever held in order to hew as closely as possible to old Democrat positions.Al Gore's speech to the Democratic convention in 2000 was a virtual eulogy for moderate politics.

At first blush, it may appear that Randlett's original premise had some merit, but that unique events caught up to it; however, the truth is that the premise was false from the beginning.This is obvious by simple reference to the issues that Miles talks about throughout the book as being those which most concerned the folks in Silicon Valley.These issues include : low taxes, education reform, freedom from regulation, anti-union policies, protection from shareholder suits, H1-B visas for high tech workers from other nations, the right to hire the most qualified people for jobs, etc.In essence, they wanted the Democrats to help them defeat : unions, teachers, consumer groups, environmentalists, trial lawyers, and civil rights activists.Those groups are, of course, along with feminist/pro-abortion groups, the core constituencies of the Democratic party. It is patently ridiculous to think that under any circumstances the Party was going to take these groups on; the fact that Bill Clinton got himself in so much personal trouble that he was completely dependent on them for his survival only hastened an inevitable date with political reality.

In fact, there's already a group which represents the ideals that the DLC and other New Democrats were talking about in the mid-90's, the Republican Party.Earlier we quoted Miles to the effect that : "The New Democrats who triumphed with Clinton in 1992 were a perfect match for entrepreneurs whose bedrock conviction was that the rules of the market guided all human endeavor."Take out the words from "The" to "1992," and you can put in the word Republicans, without having to qualify it by year.

The main

When worlds collide
It's the late 90s, and Silicon Valley is overflowing with cash. A minor Democratic Party operative, Wade Randlett, realizes that the centrist Clinton-Gore New Democrat ideology is a perfect fit for the libertarian-leaning just-get-it-done millionaires of California's high tech industry -- and better yet, they're political virgins. If he can play the matchmaker between cash-rich techies and cash-hungry politicos, Randlett could leapfrog into Democratic Party power.

In this funny and ironic account, Sara Miles recounts what happened when Silicon Valley techies, who knew nothing about how politics works, met Washington politicians who knew nothing about high tech. The clash of styles is entertaining enough, but their attempts at communicating, while badly disguising their selfish agendas, are hilarious. Don't miss the scene where Tipper Gore sits in on drums at a high-tech fundraiser, or the scene where two busloads of congressmen visiting the Napa Valley sing drunkenly to each other over their cell phones. An engaging, insightful, well-reported document of how things get done, or don't.

Good but hope there is a sequal to get full picture
In the early 1990s, Silicon Valley gave the world instant millionaires, who were also apolitical.That lack of interest changed by 1996 when Wade Randlett decided to form an action committee that supported new Democrats.HOW TO HACK A PARTY LINE is refreshing as it ignores the software side of the Valley.Instead, the tome chronicles the rising of political involvement by the Valley's previously aloof membership.The book is fascinating, similar to White's look at presidential elections, but is also disappointing because most readers will be interested in the .com community's relationship with the election of 2000 which is barely mentioned.Though well written and insightful, the Guttenberg speed of present day publishing costs Sara Miles a coup.

Harriet Klausner ... Read more