Volume 47, Number 18 · November 16, 2000
Can Populism Be Popular?
By Nicholas Lemann
The Missing Middle: Working Families and the Future of American Social Policy
by Theda Skocpol
Norton, 207 pp., $25.95
The Paradox of American Democracy: Elites, Special Interests, and the Betrayal of Public Trust
by John B. Judis
Pantheon, 305 pp., $26.00
Al Gore's rhetorical shift in emphasis during the campaign, from fiscal responsibility to a form of populism addressed to 'working families,' calls for some discussion. The Democrats spent years repositioning themselves as 'New Democrats,' a party of moderates. This was an effort in which both Bill Clinton and Gore were closely involved through most of their political careers. Candidates not just for president of the United States, but also for Congress and state and local offices, and for the chief executive positions in Britain, Germany, and Israel, have successfully run on the new moderate liberalism. So Gore's shift seems a surprise, although less so, perhaps, in view of George W. Bush's appropriating some of the New Democrats' territory with his rhetoric of 'compassionate conservatism.'
Review, 5545 words
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