Synopsis:
An array of leading Democrats, Republicans, and independent thinkers provide a road map for America’s political future.
America is at a turning point. For the first time in history, the United States is the world’s lone superpower—in Andrew Cuomo’s words, “both the tamer and target of an unstable world.” New technology and the omnipresent media have transformed the way we do everything, from amassing wealth to practicing politics. Simultaneously, the U.S. economy is in a shambles, with the largest federal budget deficit in our history. The coming octogenarian boom promises to put the greatest strain on federal government resources the United States has ever known, and America is faced with new security threats and diplomatic crises daily.
The success of our nation in the coming decades will depend on how our elected leaders respond to these challenges. Can the Democrats, divided and ineffectual since well before the crushing defeats of 2002, revitalize their agenda, forge a meaningful message, and end the Republican stranglehold on the federal government? Can Republicans, fresh from new victories, build on their successes? And how will a younger generation, largely alienated from both parties but often intensely political, articulate its desires in the years ahead?
The writers invited by Andrew Cuomo to contribute to this landmark book, a who’s who of American leadership, address these and other pressing questions of our political life. At once a diagnosis and a call to arms, Crossroads will set the terms of political debate as America moves forward.
Review:
With the United States standing as the world's lone superpower and its two competing parties locked in eternal squabble, former HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo has gathered together several notables to offer their visions of where America goes next. All of the Democratic presidential candidates active in the summer of 2003 are represented with vague essay versions of broad ranging stump speeches while President George W. Bush is conspicuously absent. But conservatives and liberals alike should find plenty that cheers and vexes them in essays by righties Bernard Goldberg, Peggy Noonan, and Georgette Mosbacher and lefties Nancy Pelosi, President Bill Clinton, and Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. And although their perspectives differ, most writers stake positions that are fairly centrist. One wishes Cuomo could have culled opinions from further out on the spectrum (although Sean "P. Diddy" Colmes offers an energetic, if not quite empirical, exploration on why today’s kids don't vote). The book could have been more dynamic if the banal ranting of Goldberg had been replaced by the more unique Pat Buchanan. And if the left is to be truly represented, where are the Zinns, Chomskys, and other liberals further out on the curve? While the book aspires to be a survey of the future of the nation, many of the essays seem to zero in on what the Democrats need to do to get elected again and what the outcome of the 2002 mid-term election means to the political landscape. There is plenty of intelligent discourse and provocative thinking, however. Standout essays include former Republican congressman and talk show host Joe Scarborough offering blunt advice for the Democrats, former Nixon aide Peter Peterson criticizing both parties for misguided economics, and pollster John Zogby forecasting what issues will dominate in election cycles to come. Crossroads will stand as a snapshot of American politics in the autumn of 2003, when many Democrats raced in a close contest for the opportunity to deny Bush a second term while the situation in post-war Iraq seemed perilously uncertain. In future years, most presidential aspirants featured here will be historical footnotes and there's no telling what the world might look like. --John Moe
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