PPI President Will Marshal explains why Bill Clinton’s contributions to restoring the language of civic obligation are so frequently overlooked over at Democracy:
“In “Restoring the Language of Obligation,” [Issue #24] James Kloppenberg laments “the ignorance of most Americans about the centrality of the concept of obligation in American history.” Yet there’s a gaping hole in his own synopsis of that history—the 1990s, when civic themes re-entered the nation’s political discourse in a big way”
“Invocations of civic duty and the disinterested pursuit of the common good were touchstones of American politics from colonial days until around the 1970s, says Kloppenberg, when liberals “traded the language of duties for the language of rights.” He argues persuasively that the ensuing fixation with rights talk and identity politics sped the unraveling of the New Deal coalition, and, by eroding more expansive notions of social solidarity, abetted the rise of Ronald Reagan’s anti-government populism.”
“But there his recap ends, skipping the striking period of civic ferment that followed. In politics, for example, Bill Clinton and the “New Democrats” consciously sought to reclaim the civic-republican tradition. Concepts like mutual obligation, community, and national service, and balancing citizens’ rights with their responsibilities, were central to the nation’s political conversation in the 1990s, and even migrated abroad via the “third way” dialogue between Clinton, Tony Blair, and other center-left political leaders.”
Read the entire article HERE.
PPI Executive Director Lindsay Lewis explains the outsized and damaging influence of both the super rich and net roots activists over at 
Mitt Romney crossed the 1,144 delegate threshold to officially claim the GOP presidential nomination via Texas’ May 29 primary. As planned, his campaign launched an attack on the president’s fiscal and economic policies, focusing initially on “failed stimulus projects” and then featuring a surprise visit by the candidate to the site of the bankrupt Solyndra facility, which received a $535 million “clean energy” loan guarantee from the DoE.
This week’s major down-ballot contest was in Nebraska’s Republican Senate primary, where State Senator Deb Fischer came from far behind to beat the long-time front-runner, Attorney General Jon Bruning, along with “movement conservative” favorite, State Treasurer Don Stenberg.
PPI President Will Marshall argues that the victory of Francois Hollande, a Socialist and the next president of France, will not likely have any significant impact on the American presidential election over at 
The presidential contest executed a rare turn into foreign policy this week, with a flurry of controversy around the first anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden.
PPI President Will Marshall argues that the Socialist presidential candidate, Francois Holland, is unlikely to offer France what it really needs-a credible program of deep structural reforms-over at 
It appeared that the 2012 Republican presidential nominating process would come to a formal close this week (given Ron Paul’s lack of interest in officially withdrawing until the Convention), and after Newt Gingrich broadly hinted he needed an upset win in Delaware to stay in the race. He subsequently lost by 29 points, and indicated he intended to withdraw quite soon. Instead, he decamped to North Carolina, and for all the world looked like he was continuing the campaign, albeit in a desultory manner. But now comes word that his Secret Service Protection has been withdrawn, making his continued campaigning look even more absurd, so he’ll probably pull the plug before running up even more debts.
Anne Kim, PPI Managing Director for Policy and Strategy, explains the economics behind the recent “Mommy Wars” at 
In just the latest sign of how gridlocked Washington has become, Congress is currently failing to pass even the most reliable of legislative standbys: naming post offices and federal buildings.
So it’s finally, incontrovertibly over.
Tuesday’s primaries in Wisconsin, Maryland and D.C. were a clean sweep for Mitt Romney, who also won 86 of the 95 pledged delegates at stake in the three states.