> Reading these papers, and reading Jeffrey Stonecash's book, has forced
> me to rethink a lot of things I used to believe. E.g., 1) the Dems
> would do better by taking a more "populist" economic position
In the mid-1960's, it would have been equally wrong to suggest that the GOP could do better by taking a more "anti-government" economic position. In the long run it turned out to be true, though - but only after years of laying the groundwork by changing people's thinking about "markets," government," "efficiency," etc. A lot of that was done by elected officials like Reagan. So Frank is both right and wrong: There's no quick and easy populist route to Dem success that the party is ignoring out of negligence or cravenness. But there is - potentially - a slow and arduous populist/social dem route to success that they're ignoring because it's hard, uncertain and offers few short-term rewards. (And it offers even fewer short-term rewards for the left now than it did for the right then, because today we lack even the semblance of an embryonic social movement to back a budding left-Reagan.)
SA