From the Sept 25 1970 issue of the Washington Post, an excerpt from “The Post-Southern Strategy,” by Kevin Phillips:

The fulcrum of Republican appeal is more or less the “social issue”—law and order, permissiveness, campus anarchy, racial engineering. . . . The [Nixon] administration cannot build a lasting new GOP coalition until it can articulate a positive philosophy and program to replace liberalism’s failure to meet the needs of Middle America.

I’d say the GOP has done pretty well since then, capturing the South and the White House for the greater part of the last half century, the Congress since the nineties, and packing the Court with conservatives.

Last November’s midterm election was a clear repudiation against the GOP and President Bush; not a clear endorsement of the Democratic Party (in spite of our substantial gains and present majority in Congress).

We have a prime opportunity to discern ourselves from the GOP, not simply as their antithesis, but as a viable replacement that serves the needs of most Americans. Of course, the terms of Democratic party building today are different than those faced by Nixon. Still, what kind of “positive philosophy and program” does the Democratic Party have to replace conservatism’s failure?

And more importantly, how will it generate a lasting Democratic majority coalition?