Wrong for all the right reasons

by Gordon MacInnes

There was a time, in this century, when liberals championed the working class, when Democrats were indisputably the party of those who worked rather than invested for a living. Today, however, most Americans have come to see liberals as drifting and aimless, somehow lacking in backbone and moral fiber, beholden to radical ideologies that have little to do with the average American's life. Few incidents cast this phenomenon into greater relief than George Bush's successful tarring of Michael Dukakis as a liberal in 1988 - and, tellingly, Dukakis's subsequent flight from the liberal tradition. How has it come to this? Why have liberals allowed themselves to be so portrayed? In this book, Gordon MacInnes - state senator, fiscal conservative, frustrated Democrat, and a man who believes deeply in America's civic culture - reveals how progressive forces have retreated from the battle of ideas, at great cost. Squarely at the nexus of race, poverty, and politics, Wrong for All the Right Reason