Democrats'' Dilemma - Walter F. Mondale and the Liberal Legacy

In this political biography of Walter Mondale, Steve Gillon asks a central question that is the basis of his argument: What does Mondale's career reveal about the dilemma of the modern Democratic party and the crisis of post-war American liberalism? Gillon's answer is that Mondale provided a bridge between the Party's past successes and its still undefined future. By examining Mondale's rise in the 1950s and 1960s and his ultimately unsuccessful effort to adjust himself to a world in which basic liberal assumptions were being questioned, Gillon argues that we can begin to understand what has happened to the Democratic Party as a whole. Gillon argues that Mondale's failure to build this new consensus transcended his individual limitations and reveals the serious problems that confronted the Party. He cites the Democrats' reluctance to make simplistic ideological appeals at a time when television makes such appeals more attractive, and their previous inability to articulate a platform that included the sweeping agenda and hopeful rhetoric necessary to attract and sustain public support. These fundamental problems and tensions, Gillon argues, define the large problems with which Mondale and the Democratic Party had to struggle.

About the author

Summary

A study of Walter Mondale's career, which reveals the dilemma of the modern US Democratic Party and the crisis of post-War American liberalism. It relates the beleaguered state of the Party in 1984, when it was torn apart by generational and ideological disputes.

Product details

• Authors: Steven Gillon, Steven M. Gillon
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 01.08.1992
• EAN: 9780231076302
• ISBN: 978-0-231-07630-2
• No. of pages: 488
• Series: Columbia Studies in Contemporary American History; Contemporary American History; Columbia Studies in Contemporary American History; Columbia Studies in Contempora
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature > Letters, diaries; Non-fiction book > History > Biographies, autobiographies; Social sciences, law, business > Political science > Political science and political education; USA, Political Parties, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Political, Biography: historical, political & military, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Process / Political Parties, United States of America, USA, Biography: historical, political and military, Political parties and party platforms, Liberalism & centre democratic ideologies, Centrist democratic ideologies