HOW LIBERALISM CAME TO THE U.S.
by John B. Judis

In the wake of almost every Democratic defeat since 1972, liberals can be found insisting that, if their candidate had adhered to the party's core economic beliefs and steered clear of social issues, he would have done much better, if not won. If Democrats were to return to "the liberalism this country once heard from Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy," Princeton University sociologist Paul Starr declared in The New York Times last month, it would "give the Democratic party back its majority." But this electoral advice--whatever its merits--sidesteps a much more basic and disturbing question: Is it possible any longer to enact the kind of liberal program that Roosevelt and his successors did? In other words, even if a Democrat were elected in 2008 on a liberal platform, would he or she be able to put it into effect?

Full story here.