Prospect fearless leader Harold Meyerson writes about the possibility of Democrats overcoming their longstanding internal divisions:
The fault lines of the '60s persisted for decades, not least because the linchpin of Republican electoral strategy since 1968 has been to paint the Democrats as peaceniks of questionable patriotism and as cultural elitists indifferent if not hostile to the white working class. The divisions also resurfaced in the party's own presidential primaries, where candidates staked out their turf either on the side of such working-class concerns as protecting industry or expanding health care (as did Walter Mondale, Dick Gephardt and Tom Harkin) or on the side of the foreign policy and environmental concerns presumably more dear to the party's upscale professionals (as did Gary Hart, Paul Tsongas and Bill Bradley).As the '60s grew smaller in the rearview mirror, however, the actual differences among the Democratic contenders grew smaller, too. Between Al Gore and Bill Bradley in 2000, or John Kerry and John Edwards in 2004, the differences in policy were minor compared with the competing views of America in the world that had divided, say, George McGovern and Scoop Jackson in the early 1970s. And as 2008 loomed, Democrats had every reason to think that this year's contest would be smoother yet. The multiple disasters of the Bush presidency had unified the Democrats around a more populist, activist economics at home and a more prudential, multilateral foreign policy abroad.
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