Are the Democrats about to put a halt to Republican dominance? If not, what might US society look like with a one-party system where campaigning is king, and governing an afterthought?
The following review from The Chistian Science Monitor One Party Country
More recently, the Republican Party has shown that it is well on its way to flawlessly executing the technique of microtargeting – developing messages and reaching specific individuals who are most likely to vote for a candidate. A new approach to conducting campaigns, it puts the onus on campaign staffs to learn about voters, including those who have not turned out in the past.
Hints at the increaslingly scyhological approach, but it does make the individual importnat, even if it akes her as socially fragmented.
and, another piece of good language.
Are the Democrats about to put a halt to Republican dominance? If not, what might US society look like with a one-party system where campaigning is king, and governing an afterthought?
and, from the NYT panel on what next..
Moderate Man is beset on all sides by the Polar People. To moderates, the American political scene must look like a frightening tableaux filled with Ann Coulters and Michael Moores, securalists waging jihad on Christmas creches and religious fundamentalists dreaming of American theocracy. We have a conservative party and a liberal party. We have a hawkish party and a dovish party. We have partisans who, when not shouting themselves hoarse, think disaster will befall the republic if the other guy obtains power.
Yet the reality is a little more complex. That’s the conclusion reached in “Red and Blue Nation? Characteristics and Causes of America’s Polarized Politics,” the first of two volumes to be published by Brookings Institute Press and the Hoover Institution. Despite its academic title, “Red and Blue Nation?” — edited by Pietro S. Nivola and David W. Brady — is well worth reading. It’s both an analysis of and, in its careful presentation of empirical data, a possible antidote to polarization.
