Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | T | The American Prospect

The life of the parties.

Article Excerpt
PARTY OF THE PEOPLE: A HISTORY OF THE DEMOCRATS BY JULES WITCOVER * RANDOM HOUSE * 758 PAGES * $35.00

GRAND OLD PARTY: A HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICANS BY LEWIS L. GOULD * RANDOM HOUSE * 588 PAGES * $35.00

FEW INSTITUTIONS OF ANY SORT IN American life have remained relevant for as long as the two national political parties. The Democratic Party traces its roots back to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in the 1790s. The Republican Party will celebrate its 150th anniversary next year. Not many other products on the shelf in 1854, much less the 1790s, are still attracting customers today.

Even more remarkable than the sheer longevity of the two parties is their dominance. No other major party has emerged since the Republicans replaced the Whigs as the principal rival to the Democrats in the 1850s, though a steady procession of third-party movements, breakaway insurgencies and charismatic leaders (from Theodore Roosevelt to Ross Perot) have regularly offered alternatives. Invariably, reports of the demise of either or both parties have proven premature. During the Civil War, Democrats seemed so tainted by the stain of rebellion that one pro-Republican newspaper editor dismissed them as "a myth, a reminiscence, a voice from the tomb, an ancient, fishlike smell." Both Barry Goldwater's landslide defeat in 1964 and Watergate 10 years later seemed to threaten the Republicans with marginalization. In the 1980s and 1990s, many commentators thought the rise in independent voters challenged the relevance of both parties.

Yet as the 21st century begins, the parties appear not only relevant but vital in shaping the way Americans look at politics. After all the focus on independent and swing voters in the early and mid 1990s (from soccer moms to Perotistas), America appears to have made a sharp turn into an era of intense partisanship. The gap in the approval ratings President Bush receives from Republicans (around 90 percent) and Democrats (usually less than 30 percent) is the widest ever recorded in polling. Party-line voting is...