The Two Americas: Our Current Political Deadlock and How to Break It (Hardcover)

~ Stanley B. Greenberg (Author) "America is divided..." (more)
Key Phrases: Opportunity Democrats, Bill Clinton, Tampa Blue (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Having spent a career closely watching the numbers, veteran Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg, who advised Bill Clinton in his 1992 victory, sees a nation entrenched into two opposing ideological camps, neither side getting much done. And so he presents solutions, of course to Democrats but also Republicans if they care to read the book, on how to break the gridlock and solidify power. Greenberg offers a history lesson, showing how for the last 50 years, neither party has had a solid grip on power and, as a result, lacked the mandate to lead. Instead, both fire up their base of supporters and scrap for small electoral groups in order to give them a tiny majority among national office holders. Armed with history and voluminous statistical data, Greenberg identifies the core constituencies of each party and assigns them catchy names in order to make his analysis more entertaining and easier to follow. The Republicans' base includes such groups as the "F-You Old Men," white blue-collar seniors with no college education, while over on the left side, the Democrats are anchored by groups like the "Secular Warriors," people who rarely attend church and don't own guns. Extensive polling took place in three communities that are battlegrounds on the electoral map and all three receive catchy nicknames as well: "Tampa Blue" (working class Florida), "The Heartland" (Iowa farm country), and "Eastside Tech" (the white-collar tech-heavy suburbs east of Seattle). After reading the pulse of these representative voters, Greenberg recommends the GOP offer up a second-generation Reagan campaign, emphasizing hope, independence, and industriousness. For the Democrats, his suggestions include taking classic Democratic themes of opportunity and equality and updating to encompass modern issues like environmental and health care concerns. This book was released in the early stages of the 2004 Democratic primaries and in the early going, the successful candidates seemed to be embracing Greenberg's notions, hoping to unseat a President Bush a second time. --John Moe

From Publishers Weekly

Pollster Greenberg (Middle Class Dreams), who was part of Bill Clinton's victorious "war room" team during the 1992 presidential campaign, is dissatisfied with the country's political split down the middle and has ideas for how to break the Democratic/Republican impasse. He considers the last, embattled presidential election "just the current moment in an era of political deadlock" stretching back to the Eisenhower administration, a half-century in which the two parties have traded power back and forth unable to form a lasting dynasty. The 2004 election, he says, promises to be just as competitive. Analyzing each party's potential, Greenberg breaks down their loyalists into identifiable factions, like "F-You Boys" (Deep Southern white male blue-collar workers who "think President George W. Bush is their guy") and "Super-Educated Women" (Democratic loyalists though their husbands, "Privileged Men," are Republicans), Then Greenberg closely examines three regional blocs that may be up for grabs: he calls them Tampa Blue, Seattle's Eastside Tech and Heartland Iowa. In the second half of the book, he imagines how party leaders might plan to keep or retake the White House. His analysis of the GOP's strategy to present Bush as the carefully scrubbed "Reagan's Son" seems dead-on. Several possible strategies are described for Democrats, but his clear preference is for putting a 21st-century spin on the values and agenda of the Kennedy-Johnson era, with such talking points as universal health care and education, tax reform, even a new "Apollo project" to tackle energy security and global warming. Intricate strategic analysis and close attention to a wavering electorate make this political handbook stand out from the pack.
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books; 1 edition (January 8, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312318383
• ISBN-13: 978-0312318383
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,193,988 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent framework to better understand the electorate., February 16, 2004

By	Gaetan Lion - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This is the book "du jour" about how to win Presidential election, and how our nation is now almost perfectly split between Republicans and Democrats. Each party accounts for about 46% of the voters. So, to win the White House you need to attract independents and swing voters.

Our most recent two-term Presidents understood the importance of appealing to such voters. Reagan appealed to the "Reagan Democrats" in the eighties. While in the nineties, Clinton the ultimate new Democrat centrist, balanced the Budget, generated economic and job growth, and thus preempted Republican economic platforms.

Nowadays, appealing to the 8% independents is very difficult because their value system does not fit within the two party system. Their values range from the classic socially liberal/fiscally conservative to the iconoclastic socially conservative/fiscally liberal, and anything in between.

Greenberg's framework is really helpful in getting a Presidential candidate to earn a majority of the independents and swing voters. His information is extremely detailed, and emanates from cluster analysis. This is a statistical method that is increasingly popular in Presidential campaign strategy. You aggregate the general population in numerous clusters or groups sharing similar behaviors, voting patterns, value systems, education, income, and what have you. Greenberg illustrates several different examples of such clusters within cities such as Tampa or Seattle, or state as Iowa. Each cluster is given a different colorful name such as Tampa Blue, Seattle Eastside Tech, and Heartland Iowa. Each cluster can have subclusters reflecting more specific demographics such as the Super-Educated Women (Democrat loyalist) or Privileged Men (Republicans).

The old motto "information is power" is truer than ever. This upcoming Presidential election is the battle of the demographic statistical databases. And, according to Greenberg and other sources, the two parties are again about even. The Democrats have acquired a database of 158 million voters dubbed "DataMart." While the Republicans have a database of 165 million people named "Voter Vault." These databases have over 300 "lifestyle variables" allowing the database managers to forecast voting patterns, and effectiveness of political campaigns.

Armed with Greenberg's type of information, a Presidential candidate can now customize his message(s) to these various clusters of swing voters. Thus, the art of political eloquence nowadays is to target your speech addressing specific issues to your local or regional audience without contradicting yourself from one town to the next. The Presidential candidate who best understands the data, customizes his speeches with effective issues, and implement the best strategy will win more swing voters and win the overall election.

Within the Democratic Primaries, Kerry and Edwards understand well this sophisticated game. Dean and Clark who had surging early successes in polls and fundraising did not understand this game so well. Dean being a single note Bush-bashing mouthpiece, and Clark doing the same thing focused exclusively on foreign policy and Iraq in particular. Thus, Kerry and Edwards's superior understanding of Greenberg's type of information made them superior candidates despite both lagging in fundraising and polls early on.

Just to clarify any confusion, Greenberg and Edwards "Two Americas" frameworks are very different. For Greenberg it represents polarized politics with nearly half the country being Republican and the other being Democrat. For Edwards, the "Two Americas" is a class hierarchy with one America consisting of the super-rich who have readily access to the best services from the private sector, and often benefit from questionable government subsidies and tax loopholes. The other America consists of the rest of us who struggle with the rising costs of health care, higher education, and insurance.

In summary, Greenberg's two Americas are divided along a political axis, and the two Americas are roughly equal (46% of the population each). Edwards' two Americas are divided along an income axis; and, one represents only 1% of the population (the Super Rich). While the other represents 99% of the population.

Greenberg's book is excellent, very well written, and incredibly informative. It is rather unique and ultimately current. I am hard pressed to recommend any like-books. Instead, I come up with a few recent articles that complement very nicely what Greenberg is talking about. One of them is "In Search of the Elusive Swing Voter" by Joshua Green in the January/February issue of The Atlantic Monthly. The other one is "Eatanswill revisited" a special report in The Economist of January 31st, 2004. Informed with this new information, you will find the Presidential Election the most fascinating media event for the remainder of the Year.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly readable, surprisingly funny, July 24, 2004

By	avanta7 "avanta7" (Yuba City CA USA) - See all my reviews

Stanley Greenberg has written a deeply researched, extensively footnoted, highly readable indictment of our current political state, and we should be humbly grateful for it.

From the preface, where he observes the press "...prefers the politics of character...." to reporting anything of substance, to the afterword, in which he presents the two scenarios he developed in the previous 300 pages to his focus groups, Greenberg holds very few cows sacred and presents a relatively even-handed treatment of the current political deadlock.

However, I give you fair warning: If you, the reader, are not of the liberal persuasion, this book may irritate the starch out of you. Remember, I said "relatively even-handed." Also remember, I'm a liberal.

Greenberg starts out with a short review of the last 200 years of political history, showing us that one-party domination is the rule rather than the exception. He devotes much attention to the last fifty years, in which no party has dominated, and even greater attention to the last 25, from the Reagan Revolution in 1980 to the bitterly contested and still controversial 2000 brouhaha, and on to the beginnings of the 2004 campaign. (Incidentally, I was reading the section on President Reagan when he died and for the first few days of our national mourning period. I was struck by irony: the facts in Greenberg's work versus the hyperbole issuing from every talking head on television.) Greenberg's liberal bias is highly evident in this section: he is far too easy on President Clinton. I laughed out loud at "...[he] advanced his proposals for gays to serve in the military, thus dramatically illustrating the breadth of the principle for America's ever-expanding rights." Oh, puh-leeze. The "don't ask, don't tell" policy was hardly a milestone in civil rights.

The author goes on to discuss the makeup of each party's core voters, or base; to present hypothetical, occasionally foul-mouthed, and often amusing "secret planning sessions" in which potential party strategies are plotted; and in the final sections, to propose a plan for each party to break the deadlock and pull the majority of voters in line with its political views. Footnotes and graphs and "chalk talk" illustrations abound throughout.

Greenberg writes in clear lucid prose, plainly setting out his premise while using minimal political jargon. While the book is meaty and dense with facts, the only dry thing about it is Greenberg's somewhat sardonic wit. It is a surprisingly funny book which should be read by every voter, regardless of political party.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Understand Who Votes for Whom and Why, March 12, 2004

By	Robert Archambeau (Lake Forest, IL USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

If you're a Democrat who has a hard time understanding why anyone would vote for the GOP, or a Republican who can't see why people vote for the Dems, this book will give you a glimpse into the other side's worldview. In fact, it will do better than that: it will show you how each party consists of loose coalitions of groups with radically different worldviews. The best thing about Greenberg's book is the clarity with which it outlines these constituencues and their priorities. You'll spend the next week after reading it watching political ads with a new interest, second-guessing who the ad is meant to appeal to and why.

Like many public affairs books, it has the look of a long essay that was fluffed up to book length on the request of the author's agent. But there is some very solid analysis of voting patterns here. Whatever happens in the next election, you can bet Greenberg's book will make it more intelligible.