Neither Roosevelt nor Reagan would have prospered in a time of great prosperity. There's general satisfaction among the electorate and a centrist kind of approach maybe the most popular. It's the left where the vacuum is. For politicians, winning is a prerequisite for doing what they want to do, and it has been clear for a long time that New Deal liberalism is no longer winning material. But even during the New Deal itself, the architects of the biggest burst of liberalism in American history worried that prosperity might crowd out progressivism.
Prosperity already tests the persistence of our progressive purpose.
Modern prosperity is testing progressives' purpose more than ever. The principal figure in the party's devotion to the center is the man who has dominated American political life for nearly seven years, Bill Clinton. He watched Democratic stalwarts like former Walter F. Mondale of Minnesota, Jimmy Carter's vice president, and Michael S. Dukakis of Massachusetts, the former governor, lean left to win the party nomination only to find that the very process of becoming the Democratic standardbearer had made them unappealing to the critical center, where general elections are won and lost. A former president of the relentlessly moderate Democratic Leadership Council, Clinton recognized that the center of gravity in American politics had shifted to the right at least since Reagan's election in 1980, and maybe even since Carter's election in 1976. Though famous for his personal lack of discipline, he nonetheless showed remarkable political discipline in 1991 and 1992, hewing to the center and positioning himself to defeat President Bush, and, in 1996, Bob Dole of Kansas, the former US Senate majority leader.