With Republicans in narrow control of Congress, Democrats should think big.
Robert Kuttner
Robert Kuttner is co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect, and professor at Brandeis University’s Heller School. His latest book is Notes for Next Time: Surviving Tyranny, Redeeming America.
Posted inFeatures
Comment: Civics as Politics
V oting turnout is very likely to decline again this year. Some of the decline reflects the fact that both candidates are widely seen as boring. But dwindling voter interest also represents a long-term trend. In this issue of the Prospect, “Rousing the Democratic Base” by Robert Dreyfuss underscores what political scientists have long observed: […]
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Two Bad Calls: The Faulty Ballots, The Bumbling Process
Americans will be asking questions about the 2000 election for some time to come. Here are two big ones: How could the world’s most secure democracy have ended up with a balloting system in which millions of votes routinely get lost, miscounted, stolen, or spoiled? The premise seems to be: What the hell, it’s close […]
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Of Our Time: A Liberal Dunkirk?
H as the Clinton presidency been a grave setback for liberalism? Or a necessary, if wrenching, re-centering? We have debated this question in our pages, and historians will long argue the issue. One must await the results of the 1996 election to provide a more complete answer. However, here is a look at both sides […]
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Beyond The Spin, Deep Differences
After one of the emptiest political conventions on record, the stage is actually set for a very consequential November election. Though the Republicans did their best to camouflage it,theirs remains a highly conservative program. There really are enormous differences of substance between the two major candidates. If the election can be made to turn on […]
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What Makes People Think Bush Has Won?
”Politics ain’t beanbag” — Finley Peter Dunne One of the many oddities of this cliffhanger election is what might be called the entitlement gap. Right from election night, the Republicans have behaved as if the election was theirs, while Vice President Gore has temporized. This sense of Republican entitlement in turn translates into a partisan […]
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For Many Voters a Choice About Choice
Many viewers were startled to hear George W. Bush and Dick Cheney sound kinder and gentler on the hot-button issue of abortion rights. In the first TV debate Bush seemed to declare that he would not try to overturn the FDA’s decision approving the abortion drug RU-486, that he wouldn’t make reversing Roe v. Wade […]
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Comment: Beyond the Fringe
As we go to press, polls show Al Gore running as much as eight points behind George W. Bush nationally, and behind among every major age group except for voters over 65. This is truly remarkable. The economy is strong, the Republicans got the worst of the impeachment scandal, there are no serious foreign-policy problems, […]
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The Two-Party System is Letting us Down
This year voting turnout could fall to a record presidential low. The decline partly reflects two dreadful candidates but also the long-term impoverishment of politics. Membership organizations have been displaced by professional fund-raisers and TV spots. The time squeeze leaves no leisure for ordinary people to go to meetings. Civic values are crowded out by […]
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The Lynching of The Black Vote
Many books will be written about the stolen presidential election of 2000. And when they are, one prominent factor will be the Republicans systematic and extra-legal effort to reduce black voting, details of which are just now being pieced together. Black turnout was way up this year, and nowhere more dramatically than in Florida. Black […]