What's Left?: A New Democratic Vision for America

by Robert S. McElvaine

Offering an examination of what's wrong with America and what can be done to reverse our social, moral, and economic decline, What's Left? employs interviews with President Clinton, Dick Gephardt,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1558506292
• ISBN13: 9781558506299
• Release Date: January 1996
• Publisher: Adams Media Corporation
• Length: 248 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Not That Much New

To be honest I was a little disappointed with this book. Not because of what was written, but what was not written. I thought the book would be a well thought out plan or direction that the Democratic Party should take over the next decade. What I got was a review of Newt and the 94 -96 battles, a review of the Clinton administrations first term and then finally a view as to what is to come. Again the book was well written and the items covered were done so with a lot of passion, it was just not what I expected. I must admit that I love to read any book that gives Newt a hard time and this author certainly has no love for the man. As far as the direction that the party should take going forward there were a lot of good common sense items that were spelled out. So many so that one wonders why they are not acted on instead of all the minor issues that our current group of public servants like to go on about. The real issue is not really coming up with the ideas, it is having a leader that can articulate the issues and show the average American that the Democratic platform is a positive force for them. Unfortunately what we are probably going to get is two years of arguing about WMD and who knew what and not focusing on the real issues and how to make American a better place for us all to live. Overall the book was a good read, it just fell short of the stated purpose.

A wonderful, pro-worker progressive vision for AMerica

This is - quite simply - a wonderful vision for America in which the bottom 80% of workers are finally given a voice in such areas as health care, education, day care, fair taxation and rights of labor. In his work, the author explains why the Democrats lost in 1994 and what the party can - or should I say 'should' - have done to regain its power in the coming years. By centering on kitchen table issues such as health care, education and day care, the author notes, we can make a difference in making politics more relavent to everyday families and in actually cleaning up the system by making it more accountable. He has great ideas: From a return to a demand to health care reform to taking away the regressive and anti-worker effect of the Social Security tax to fighting for a shorter work week. In an age in which such ideas as taxing the wages of a millionaire at the same rate of a working class person(the flat tax)are popular, it is very nice to see such common sense, pramgatic and progressive thinking. I highly recommend this one.