Democrats in search of a principle

Dan Balz
WashPost blog

Shortly after last year's midterm elections, a group of wealthy Democratic donors who had been trying to plot the future of their party gathered in Miami for a meeting that included a keynote address by former New York governor Mario Cuomo.

The donors were in a buoyant mood after the Democratic victories but Cuomo quickly brought them back to earth. Democrats had won, he said, because of a gift -- the Bush administration's bungling of the war in Iraq.

Without Iraq, he said, Democrats had only a timid agenda to offer the country. "It leaves you in the same position you were in in 2004 -- without an issue," Cuomo told them. "Because you have no big idea."

New York Times Magazine writer Matt Bai writes about that moment at the end of his new book, "The Argument: Billionaires, Bloggers and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics." As the battle for the Democratic presidential nomination enters a more serious phase, Bai's engaging and entertaining book is both timely and instructive, raising anew the question: What do the Democrats stand for?

This is a question that frustrates many in the party -- activists and elected officials alike. They see the Republican Party floundering and divided over a post-Bush governing blueprint and wonder why the focus so often turns to whether the Democrats have a coherent philosophy and a set of ideas to match.

(Continued here.)