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Originally Posted by guyy
La Follette made his reputation as governor of Wisconsin where he was effective. What's is "failure" anyway?
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Failure is getting 10-15% (?) of the vote for President....in large part because the population of Wisc did not reflect the more diverse population of the US. He couldnt sell the populist programs that worked in Wisc to the rest of the country.
The same holds true today. I dont think you will find a majority of Americans supporting the populist agenda that host proposes by any measure.
The key to winning a presidential election today is attracting the growing number of Independents who do not support either extreme. The key to governing effectively is maintaining that popular support.
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That's not really true. You're telling me and host what can't be done. By your calculations, the progressive movement of the '20s or the New Deal would never have occurred because thinking outside the dominant political ideology leads to defeat. So what happened to FDR in '36?
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Nope..I am just offering my opinion as a Congress watcher on what I think is achievable in an Obama first term, particularly with a fillbuster happy republican minority....again based on the facts that those populist positions do not have wide spread support among the electorate.