How Democrats Got Away From ‘Third Way’ Politics
A four-decade effort to make the party more moderate has come to an end, a casualty of changing priorities on both the left and right.
Two presidents, different parties.
Photographer: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images North AmericaThe era of the New Democrats, who spent four decades seeking to reinvent their party, has finally come to an end. Don't take my word for it — take it from Simon Rosenberg, a longtime Democratic analyst and consultant who founded the New Democrat Network in 1996. He announced last month that his organization, now known simply as NDN, will soon close its doors.
The shuttering of the NDN seems like an appropriate moment to consider the legacy of the New Democrats, who achieved prominence during the presidency of Bill Clinton. Though their influence over the policy positions of national Democratic leaders remains evident, the New Democrats’ major political achievement — pushing the Democratic Party to expand its base of popular support by adopting a more moderate public image — has, like the faction’s disappearing organizational infrastructure, become a casualty of a changing world.