Crossroads
The Future of American Politics
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- $5.99
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
An array of leading Democrats, Republicans, and independent thinkers provide a road map for America’s political future.
America is at a turning point. For the first time in history, the United States is the world’s lone superpower—in Andrew Cuomo’s words, “both the tamer and target of an unstable world.” New technology and the omnipresent media have transformed the way we do everything, from amassing wealth to practicing politics. Simultaneously, the U.S. economy is in a shambles, with the largest federal budget deficit in our history. The coming octogenarian boom promises to put the greatest strain on federal government resources the United States has ever known, and America is faced with new security threats and diplomatic crises daily.
The success of our nation in the coming decades will depend on how our elected leaders respond to these challenges. Can the Democrats, divided and ineffectual since well before the crushing defeats of 2002, revitalize their agenda, forge a meaningful message, and end the Republican stranglehold on the federal government? Can Republicans, fresh from new victories, build on their successes? And how will a younger generation, largely alienated from both parties but often intensely political, articulate its desires in the years ahead?
The writers invited by Andrew Cuomo to contribute to this landmark book, a who’s who of American leadership, address these and other pressing questions of our political life. At once a diagnosis and a call to arms, Crossroads will set the terms of political debate as America moves forward.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Cuomo, former secretary of housing and urban development, intends for these three dozen plus essays to provide a road map for bringing the Democratic Party back to prominence. The essayists include most of the current Democratic candidates for president, a number of academics who analyze political trends, Republicans eager to share their views on what is wrong with the Democratic Party and, for good measure, several outside-the-box contributors such as hip-hop eminences Sean "P.Diddy" Combs and Russell Simmons. The presidential candidates offer mostly sensible but predictable prescriptions. Sen. John Edwards opines on the need "to do far better by America's families," while Sen. John Kerry invokes the need for a "better, fairer economic policy that grows jobs and creates wealth for all Americans." Sen. Bob Graham suggests equally blandly, "We need leaders who listen to the people of America...." Less predictable but somewhat baffling are the comments of Combs, who argues that young voters aren't interested in politics because politicians seem to lack passion: "That's why we need some fistfights to go down in the Senate," he asserts. Among the earnest Democratic rhetoric and insincere critical assessments (of Democrats) by self-satisfied Republicans, there is a provocative piece by Princeton professor Sean Wilentz that argues that the 2000 election was marred by the effort of some Republican operatives to suppress the voting rights of minorities. But whatever this compilation's overall merits, the irony of California governor Gray Davis's advice on how to bring back the party of Roosevelt and Clinton is inescapable.