How the Democrats Can Once Again Become America's Dominant Political Party

Rick Perlstein's Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus was a fascinating look at the nascent conservative movement. Perlstein is back again with an analysis of how we can adopt some of the tactics and techniques conservatives used to motivate their base and win nationally.

A majority of Americans tell pollsters they want more government intervention to reduce the gap between high- and lower-income citizens, and less than one-third consider high taxes to be a problem. Yet conservative Republicanism currently controls the political discourse. Why?

Rick Perlstein probes this central paradox of today's political scene in his penetrating pamphlet. Perlstein explains how the Democrats' obsessive short-term focus on winning "swing voters," instead of cultivating loyal party-liners, has relegated Democrats to political stagnation. Perlstein offers a vigorous critique and far-reaching vision that is a thirty-year plan for Democratic victory.