The Two Americas; Our Current Political Deadlock and How to Break It

by Stanley B. Greenberg

• ISBN13: 9780312318390
• ISBN10: 0312318391
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2005-06-01
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

Summary

The 2000 presidential left the world standing still, but it was no fluke. America is divided right down the middle - the product of a half-century, unique in our country's history, of inconclusive, increasingly heated partisan battle. Tantalizingly close to victory, each party inflames and mobilizes its most loyal supporters and battles to gain even a small edge with some contested groups. Politics has become culture war - a fight about values, faith, the family, how people should live their lives. The result: partisans are more partisan, politics more polarized, America more divided. The Two Americas: Our Current Political Deadlock and How to Break Ittells the history of each party's failed efforts to dominate the era's politics and ideas, radically changing the political landscape. The book provides an in-depth guide to the new groups at the center of our politics. Internationally renowned political strategist and pollster Stanley Greenberg puts the reader in the room with the strategists and politicians and shows how each party can win, even shatter the impasse. The Two Americasis a political primer and strategic playbook for this unique era - essential reading for any armchair political strategist or engaged citizen eager to understand our future politics.

Author Biography

Stanley B. Greenberg is CEO of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research. He has served as advisor and pollster to President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, Prime Minister Tony Blair, Presidents Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki, Prime Minister Ehud Barak, German Chancellor Gerhard Schröeder and Bolivian President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada. He was key to the war room team that last defeated President Bush and is also the author of Middle Class Dreams.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Part I: The Politics of Parity	1	(32)
Toward Hegemony	7	(26)
Part II: Half Century Untamed: 1952--2002	33	(58)
The Opportunity Democrats: Redefined by Race	39	(10)
The Reagan Revolutionaries: Reduced to Culture War	49	(18)
The Reformed Opportunity Democrats: The Lost Middle	67	(24)
Part III: The Loyalists	91	(46)
The World of Republican Partisans	95	(22)
The World of Democratic Partisans	117	(20)
Part IV: Contested America	137	(56)
Three Contested Communities	139	(22)
The Contested Political World	161	(32)
Part V: Breaking the Deadlock: The Republicans	193	(48)
Step One: Winning in Our America	195	(23)
Step Two: Reagan's America	218	(23)
Part VI: Breaking the Deadlock: The Democrats	241	(70)
The ``Election Project''	247	(27)
Toward a Bold Politics: The JFK Democrats	274	(37)
Afterword: 2004---Toward Total War	311	(28)
Appendixes	339	(30)
Notes	369	(46)
Index	415