How Democrats Killed Their Populist Soul

[Warpy]

1. They weren't so much Watergate Babies

but a broad coalition of mostly (but not exclusively) southern, conservative Democrats who promised to counter the Nixonian "southern strategy" that had pandered to bigots outraged by the civil rights legislation Johnson had managed to ram through by pulling the party far enough to the right that they'd stop scaring the upper middle class with egalitarian and pro regulatory economic policies. They claimed Carter and Clinton as major victories, rather like roosters bragging that they'd brought the dawn.

Unfortunately, the party has yet to move on from this dismal period, not even after Dr. Dean showed them how to win elections again.