Democratic Campaign Book

After Barack Obama's solid win in the 2012 election, it's easy to forget that there was a time, not long ago, when the Democrats were shut out of power for over a decade. But Al From remembers. In 1984, he led a small band of governors, US senators, and members of Congress to organize the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC). Their mission: to rescue the party from the political wilderness, redefine its message, and, most importantly, win presidential elections. In April 1989, From traveled to Little Rock, Arkansas, to recruit the state's young governor, Bill Clinton, to be chairman of the DLC. Here, Al From explores the founding philosophy of the New Democrats, which not only achieved stunning validation during Clinton's two terms, but also became the model for resurgent center-left parties in Europe and throughout the democratic world. Here, he outlines for the first time the principles at the heart of the movement, including economic centrism, national security, and entitlement reform, and why they are vital to the success of the Democratic Party in the years ahead.

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice One of Kirkus Reviews' ten best US history books of 2022 A leading historian tells the story of the United States’ most enduring political party and its long, imperfect and newly invigorated quest for “moral capitalism,” from Andrew Jackson to Joseph Biden. One of Kirkus Reviews' 40 most anticipated books of 2022 One of Vulture's "49 books we can't wait to read in 2022" The Democratic Party is the world’s oldest mass political organization. Since its inception in the early nineteenth century, it has played a central role in defining American society, whether it was exercising power or contesting it. But what has the party stood for through the centuries, and how has it managed to succeed in elections and govern? In What It Took to Win, the eminent historian Michael Kazin identifies and assesses the party’s long-running commitment to creating “moral capitalism”—a system that mixed entrepreneurial freedom with the welfare of workers and consumers. And yet the same party that championed the rights of the white working man also vigorously protected or advanced the causes of slavery, segregation, and Indian removal. As the party evolved towards a more inclusive egalitarian vision, it won durable victories for Americans of all backgrounds. But it also struggled to hold together a majority coalition and advance a persuasive agenda for the use of government. Kazin traces the party’s fortunes through vivid character sketches of its key thinkers and doers, from Martin Van Buren and William Jennings Bryan to the financier August Belmont and reformers such as Eleanor Roosevelt, Sidney Hillman, and Jesse Jackson. He also explores the records of presidents from Andrew Jackson and Woodrow Wilson to Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Throughout, Kazin reveals the rich interplay of personality, belief, strategy, and policy that define the life of the party—and outlines the core components of a political endeavor that may allow President Biden and his co-partisans to renew the American experiment.

ONE OF THE ECONOMIST'S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR AND A WINNER OF THE WASHINGTON MONTHLY'S ANNUAL POLITICAL BOOK AWARD Political experts John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira convincingly use hard data -- demographic, geographic, economic, and political -- to forecast the dawn of a new progressive era. In the 1960s, Kevin Phillips, battling conventional wisdom, correctly foretold the dawn of a new conservative era. His book, The Emerging Republican Majority, became an indispensable guide for all those attempting to understand political change through the 1970s and 1980s. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, with the country in Republican hands, The Emerging Democratic Majority is the indispensable guide to this era. In five well-researched chapters and a new afterword covering the 2002 elections, Judis and Teixeira show how the most dynamic and fastest-growing areas of the country are cultivating a new wave of Democratic voters who embrace what the authors call "progressive centrism" and take umbrage at Republican demands to privatize social security, ban abortion, and cut back environmental regulations. As the GOP continues to be dominated by neoconservatives, the religious right, and corporate influence, this is an essential volume for all those discontented with their narrow agenda -- and a clarion call for a new political order.

"A smart, readable history of the Democrats that reminds us of the party's allegiance to capital."—Indypendent

This is the official democratic campaign book for the 1894 congressional election. It provides an insider's look at the democratic party's platform and strategy. A must-read for anyone interested in the history of American politics. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

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Fighting fascism at home and abroad begins with the consolidation of a progressive politics Seventy-five years ago, Henry Wallace, then the sitting Vice President of the United States, mounted a campaign to warn about the persisting "Danger of American Fascism." As fighting in the European and Japanese theaters drew to a close, Wallace warned that the country may win the war and lose the piece; that the fascist threat that the U.S. was battling abroad had a terrifying domestic variant, growing rapidly in power: wealthy corporatists and their allies in the media. Wallace warned that if the New Deal project was not renewed and expanded in the post-war era, American fascists would use fear mongering, xenophonbia, and racism to regain the economic and political power that they lost. He championed an alternative, progressive vision of a post-war world-an alternative to triumphalist "American Century" vision then rising--in which the United States rejected colonialism and imperialism. Wallace's political vision - as well as his standing in the Democratic Party - were quickly sidelined. In the decades to come, other progressive forces would mount similar campaigns: George McGovern and Jesse Jackson more prominently. As John Nichols chronicles in this book, they ultimately failed - a warning to would-be reformers today - but their successive efforts provide us with insights into the nature of the Democratic Party, and a strategic script for the likes of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.