The Left Loses Its Way by Abandoning ‘Third Way’

By Michael Barone

"Left parties are in trouble in the Anglosphere. Here in America, Democrats are doing worse in the polls than at any time in the last 50 years. In Britain, the Labor Party is on the brink of finishing third, behind both Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, in the election next Thursday.

All of which raises the question: What happened to the "third way" center-left movement that once seemed to sweep all before it?

Only a dozen years ago, in 1998, President Bill Clinton enjoyed 70 percent job approval. Prime Minister Tony Blair was basking in adulation in his first full year in office.

Clinton "third way" New Democrats and Blair's "New Labor" party seemed to have a bright and long future ahead. Clinton's designated successor, Al Gore, despite some ham-handed campaigning, came out ahead in the popular vote in 2000 and lost the presidency by only some hundreds of votes in Florida. With Blair at its head, Labor won unprecedented re-election victories in 2001 and 2005.

Now, less than a generation later, both New Democrats and New Labour seem defunct."