As this election season unfolds, we are watching an age-old dream in politics go horribly smash. It isn't good for politics, and it sure isn't good for the country.
President Franklin
Roosevelt helped to fire up the dream during his second term in office.
Coming off a massive landslide in 1936, he believed that it would be far
better for governing if the Democrats became the liberal party and
Republicans the conservative one. In the 1938 congressional elections,
he barnstormed across the South trying to purge the Democratic Party of
several incumbent conservatives. His efforts backfired -- the incumbents
won and were sore at FDR -- but the dream became a staple of politics.
