All remains to be seen. But Reich offers a persuasive, and spirited, view of the present political landscape and how it...
To the barricades, liberals: according to former Secretary of Labor Reich, your hour is at hand.
Americans, Reich (The Future of Success, 2001, etc.) argues, tend to be socially moderate, if not liberal; certainly they are not “radcons,” or radical conservatives, by inclination. In support of this assertion, Reich offers a series of public-opinion surveys showing that a majority of people favor a woman’s right to choose, America conceived of as a secular nation, environmental protection over short-term economic gain, and liberty and justice for all. Yet—and here’s the rub—even though Americans “have had enough of the radical conservatives—their intolerance, their mean-spiritedness, their moral righteousness, their arrogance toward the rest of the world”—Americans seem to have no problem putting such people in office. This, by Reich’s account, is because the progressive or liberal wing of the Democratic Party has failed to provide any kind of agenda that speaks to the “large, anxious middle and lower-middle class” and has instead stood by as others within the party have pushed it rightward toward an imagined center. “Centrism is bogus,” Reich thunders. “The ‘center’ keeps shifting further right because Radcons stay put while Democrats keep meeting them halfway.” Thus Clinton’s embracing an economic boom that benefited only a few; thus the Democrats’ having so little vision that the only thing they could think of to do with the budget surplus of a few years’ back was to retire the national debt early. Stuff and nonsense, Reich argues; it’s time to unfurl the liberal flag and proudly own the name, recognizing that the largest political group in the country is not Republicans or Democrats or “swing voters,” but those Americans who, out of apathy or disgust, just don’t vote at all. That’s the audience to court, Reich insists, for winning it will bring on a liberal restoration.
All remains to be seen. But Reich offers a persuasive, and spirited, view of the present political landscape and how it might be remade.Pub Date: May 12, 2004
ISBN: 1-4000-4221-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2004
A fly-in-campaign-headquarters perspective on the last presidential race, written by Newsweek's special election team, several of whose members also worked on Quest for the Presidency 1988 (1989). A portion of this book appeared in a special issue of the magazine, published a day and a half after the last polls closed on November 3, 1992. No candidate is an FDR to his handlers—or so goes the handlers' refrain to Goldman and associates. Bill Clinton's days of whine and roses came in the primaries, as he erupted into rages over staffers' inability to focus attention on his agenda—though questions about his past were what distracted the media from the message of change. Ross Perot was astonished at the enthusiasm sparked by his hint that he would run for president—then unexpectedly indecisive about managing his wild-card challenge to the two-party system. George Bush was too consumed by foreign policy to notice the tremors beneath his once-solid poll standings and disheartened that the only way to retain his office would be through the partisan dustup that won him a first term (and stinging criticism). The beginning of this account offers the hope of a meaningful interpretation of the results, as the authors depict national disgust with deepening recession and with cynical, corrupt incumbents. Before long, however, they resort to horse-race journalism featuring media meisters who groan as their charges stumble from exhaustion. So accustomed are these spin doctors to their craft that now they use it to explain their own campaign roles, as witnessed in the 100-odd pages of strategy memos in the appendix. The Newsweek team has uncovered some sardonic vignettes, to be sure (e.g., callers asking for Jerry Brown's campaign manager were sometimes told that she was chanting at a staff meeting and could not be disturbed), but too often they follow political warriors like James Carville, James Baker, and Ed Rollins as they sulk in their tents. Instead of sounding the ``quiet national crisis'' that upended the old order, the authors have let puffed-up pols strut and fret during their hour upon the stage. (61 b&w photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Nov. 14, 1994
ISBN: 0-89096-644-3
Page Count: 800
Publisher: Texas A&M Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Jacob reveals that while Washington, D.C.'s cocktail- and dinner-party circuit has changed in its makeup over the last 200 years, its spirit remains the same. Jacob (assistant program director for publications at the National Historical Publications and Records Commission) focuses on three subsets of D.C.'s elite during the Gilded Age, as dubbed by Mark Twain: the Antiques (who later became known as the Cave- Dwellers), the Officials, and the Parvenus. Before the Civil War, the fine old Southern Antique families reigned in society. After the war, with Southern ways and means felled by Confederate defeat, war heroes, Bonanza Kings, and patent profiteers poured into the capital, and the Northern Republican officials who came to administer the restored Union set the social agenda. By the turn of the century, masses of new millionaires had streamed into Washington, which, because of its regular post-election population turnover, was known as the easiest American society to break into. The bankrolls and ballrooms of the nouveaux riches ruled the social pages of the newspapers. In each of the three eras, snubs, scandals, seasonal belles, and supermarriages fed the rumor mill. Interestingly, the First Ladies of the last century suffered some of the same travails as their 20th-century successors: Mary Todd Lincoln was criticized for her expensive clothing tastes, and Julia Grant was caught up in a gold speculation scandal. Despite such occasional juicy historical gossip, the book often resembles a who- was-who catalog. Ultimately, the social gaze Jacob casts upon D.C.'s well-born and well-to-do proves superficial, like a party- goer who describes the setting, the guest list, the seating, the menu, and a few snippets of overheard conversation without ever catching the double entendres. In describing social jockeying in pre-Beltway D.C., Jacob sacrifices incisiveness for comprehensiveness.
Pub Date: Nov. 22, 1994
ISBN: 1-56098-354-X
Page Count: 344
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1994
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