Description
Book SynopsisDaniel Soyer''s history of the Liberal Party of New York State, Left in the Center, shows the surprising relationship between Democratic Socialism and mainstream American politics.
Beginning in 1944 and lasting until 2002, the Liberal Party offered voters an ideological seal of approval and played the role of strategic kingmaker in the electoral politics of New York State. The party helped elect presidents, governors, senators, and mayors, and its platform reflected its founders'' social democratic principles. In practical politics, the Liberal Party''s power resided in its capacity to steer votes to preferred Democrats or Republicans with a reasonable chance of victory. This uneasy balance between principle and pragmatism, which ultimately proved impossible to maintain, is at the heart of the dramatic political story presented in Left in the Center.
The Liberal Party, the longest-lived of New York''s small parties, began as a means for
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In Left in the Center, Daniel Soyer offers an extensively sourced and detailed history of the party's founding, growth, shifting ideologies, and eventual demise in the early 2000s.
* The Hudson River Valley Review *
Daniel Hudson's book on the Liberal Party of New York is a gift to students of New York State politics, whether at the academy of in the political arena. Simply put, this historical work is useful today on many fronts. It shows struggles and successes, aspirations and realities, power and influence, greed and generosity.
* Hudson River Valley Review *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Liberal Party and the Rise and Fall of Pragmatic Social Democracy
1. Labor Politics in New York
2. "Fighting Liberals" at the Polls
3. New Deal Legacy at the Crossroads
4. A "Year-Round Party"
5. Cold War Liberalism in City, State, and Nation
6. Liberal Crusades and Backroom Deals
7. New Frontiers
8. Liberal Victory and Liberalism in Turmoil
9. Wars in Vietnam and at Home
10. The End of the Rose Era
11. Not Liberal, Not a Party
Postscript: The Afterlife of the Liberal Party
