Washington, D.C. On April 27, Al From, the president of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), and Will Marshall, the president of the DLC’s Progressive Policy Institute, had lunch with John Swee ney, the president, and Steve Rosenthal, the political director, of the AFL-CIO. These four people had met but had never talked amicably or seriously […]
Money, Politics, and Power
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The Mythology of Centrism
Pundits have misinterpreted Tony Blair’s and Bill Clinton’s victories as centrism triumphant. But voters chose leaders committed to stopping Thatcherism and Reaganism and restoring broad prosperity.
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George W.’s Compassion
George W. Bush can cut taxes and speak Spanish, too. But is compassionate conservatism anything more than Gingrichism with a human face?
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The Broken Engine of Progressive Politics
The gears of the American change machine — presidents, parties, and social movements — no longer work together. A new view of America’s major political transformations, from Jefferson and Jackson down to the current disarray of progressive forces.
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Where Have You Gone, Nelson Rockefeller?
Impeachment may have hurt conservatives, but it also revealed just how weak GOP moderates are. The plight of northern Republicans isn’t just temporary; it’s structural.
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Clinton’s Bequest
Budget balance may turn out to be an unexpected boon to liberals; so far it has helped deliver full employment and a Social Security rescue, and has left Republicans looking economically self-serving and fiscally inept. Now can liberals build on Clinton’s clean slate?
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Hearings Loss
It has been a long time since congressional hearings investigated real corporate and government abuses or serious social problems. But since 1994, the situation has gotten far worse: the oversight machinery is used for partisan purposes or simply left to rot.
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Of Our Time: Constraining Capital, Liberating Politics
If, as widely predicted, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) wins the German election in September, there will be center-left governments simultaneously in every major European nation for the first time in history — in London, Paris, Rome, and Berlin. Of the 15 nations of the European Union, no fewer than 13 will be governed by […]
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Reform Party Follies
In the summer of 1998, Jesse Ventura, who was running for governor of Minnesota on the Reform Party ticket, wanted to obtain a loan from the party’s national headquarters to pay for political advertising, but he couldn’t get the national organization on the phone. National Chairman Russell Verney later explained to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, “The […]
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The Moynihan Enigma
Why the Senate’s intellectual giant is a strangely ineffective lawmaker.
