The Washington Times

Political scientists have been writing for decades now about the decline of the major parties in American political life. It’s true that voters are less willing to identify themselves as either Republican or Democrat. And it’s likewise true that such massive developments over the decades as the professionalization of the civil service, thus diminishing patronage rewards at the disposal of party leaders, has reduced clout in the old style. Likewise, the democratization of the parties in the form of caucuses and primaries – including primaries in which nonparty members can participate – has substantially decreased the amount of business that gets done in smoke-filled rooms.

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The Washington Times

Al Gore’s selection of Joe Lieberman as his running mate promised a Democratic campaign for the White House pitched squarely at the center of public opinion. This was the triumph of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council in presidential politics. Although Mr. Lieberman’s personal and family story is compelling, the initial rush of attention to his Jewishness probably detracted attention from the fact that this is the most right-leaning ticket Democrats have ever put together.

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Gore and Lieberman continue to lead the Democratic Party, ever so cautiously, to the right.

View this article at The Weekly Standard

From the time he emerged as a serious presidential aspirant in 1991, Bill Clinton consciously set himself to the task of remaking the Democratic party, cracking it loose from the ossifying ideological liberalism of FDR and LBJ in an effort to broaden its political appeal.  Clinton was a New Democrat in 1992. And notwithstanding a few major political missteps along the way, most notably a health care initiative that was too big for his own party to chew in Congress, he remains a New Democrat to the end, the first and foremost practitioner of the Third Way politics that has brought left-leaning parties back to power all over the world.

From the beginning, the politics of the Third Way has been greeted by skepticism from both left and right — as one might expect, since Third Way adherents define themselves at least in part in opposition to both left and right. Conservatives have sometimes refused to take it seriously as anything but old-style liberalism flying a false flag. Liberals have wondered whether it was anything more than a slogan providing political cover for an unwelcome lurch to the right.

Does the Third Way have content in its own right? Or is it primarily a strategy of political positioning aimed at carving out an electoral majority from the center-left to the center-right?

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The Washington Times

The Democrats are putting on a wonderful party. It is not a party likely to win in November, but it is great fun in August. At The Mondrian – one of the trendy West Hollywood hotels where the best after-hours Democratic parties are being held in the hotel’s Skybar – the management optimistically passes out intimacy kits consisting of: two Durex lubricated, spermicide (Nonoxynol-9) prophylactics, two obstetrical towelettes – and one package lubricating jelly. In my hotel in Philadelphia I got a sewing kit and a shower cap.

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The Washington Times

For some years now, Republicans have complained about Democrats “stealing” their issues. From crime to welfare to balancing the federal budget, Democrats succeeded in operating successfully on what the GOP had grown accustomed to thinking of as its turf, and the result was a constant source of irritation for Republicans. President Bill Clinton was under their skin, and they had to scratch the itch – with unpleasant and self-destructive consequences familiar to the parent of any 5-year-old with a mosquito bite.

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The Washington Times

The inclusion of New Hampshire Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, who was entirely implausible as a vice presidential nominee at this stage of her political career, seemed mainly to provide a small counterweight to the white maleness of Al Gore’s short list for vice president. It’s now clear, however, that Mr. Gore’s short list was only superficially universe. It seems impossible to avoid the conclusion that Sen. Joseph Lieberman’s Jewishness was a central point in his favor from the beginning.

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The Washington Times

For one brief moment in the summer four years ago, Republicans were happy. The moment came just as they met for their convention in San Diego, when Bob Dole announced that Jack Kemp would be his running mate. The surprising choice united the party, as intended, and produced a short-lived emotional GOP high in which it became possible to imagine beating Bill Clinton.

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