The Clinton comeback.

• Author: Suderman, Peter
• Position: Follow-Up - Bill Clinton and the New Democrats

When Bill Clinton was first elected president in 1992, he was widely viewed as an avatar of the New Democrats, a relatively moderate coalition that had grown in response to the perception that the party had tilted too far toward the left. New Democrats thought of Clinton's victory as their biggest success, or at least they did until he took office, according to Joel Kotkin's February 1995 reason article, "The Center Folds."

Two years in, Clinton's presidency represented a "fundamental betrayal of the New Democrat agenda by the very president whose ascendancy was thought to put the movement's ideas on the political fast track," Kotkin wrote. Clinton ran "as a New Democrat but [governed] as an old one," putting the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC)--the movement's central organization --in "an untenable position" thanks to its members' "personal associations and past associations with the president." Left-wing Democrats who abandoned the DLC agenda, wrote Kotkin, would "only serve to destroy the party as a serious national force."

Almost 20 years later, the left wing of the party is considerably stronger. But the party's march toward progressivism didn't destroy it. Instead, it led to a series of sweeping national victories, culminating with the election of President Barack Obama...