Don't Crash My Party!

by Shirene Hansotia

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• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0977820580
• ISBN13: 9780977820580
• Release Date: January 2007
• Publisher: Helm Publishing (IL)
• Length: 359 Pages
• Weight: 1.24 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Reviewed by Jim Melcher

Growing up in Wisconsin, I was steeped in the political traditions of William Proxmire, Robert LaFollette and the Progressive reformers. In Don't Crash My Party!, it's clear that Shirene Hansotia, who also grew up in Wisconsin, was very much influenced by them as well. Hansotia's book is billed as a road map for the Democratic Party's future, and her suggested directions are clearly influenced by her heroes' fear of concentrated power (especially corporate power) and emphasis upon procedural reform, efficiency and honesty in government. At the same time, however, Hansotia looks backward in a harsh and extensive critique of the Bush Administration (particularly in foreign policy) as well as what she sees as the failure of the Democratic Party to offer an effective and cogent alternative. Hansotia emphasizes her political heroes in many places in the book, and her selections are very telling. The Democratic Party she wants would place much more emphasis upon pragmatism and centrism than on ideology-in fact, her central critique of the Bush Administration is that it has been too rigidly ideological and that this has led it astray again and again. She is critical of what she terms extremism in the Republican Party of today, but also fears that current Democrats are too frequently seen as extremists in Middle America on social issues. Many of the traditional heroes of the Democratic Party like Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Hubert Humphrey who argued for clearly liberal national government policies get relatively little mention (and FDR's Social Security, one of the traditional Democratic signature programs, is singled out as an area where tighter fiscal discipline is needed). Her heroes are those who worked for relatively center-left or centrist policies like John Kennedy and Bill Clinton, or government watchdogs and procedural reformers like Bill Proxmire and (especially) Russ Feingold, and she wants the Democrats to follow their examples. A sense of shared sacrifice and love of country is central to her arguments. Her exaltation of the pre-2004 John McCain is particularly telling, and his efforts to curry favor with conservative forces in the Republican Party clearly were very disillusioning for her. One gets the sense that she would have found much common ground with the old pragmatic, moderate Republicans like Dwight Eisenhower, Nelson Rockefeller, Margaret Chase Smith and Warren Knowles whose views have been supplanted by more conservative and more ideological leaders like James Inhofe, Newt Gingrich and others over the past two decades. Many Wisconsin progressives were very fond of John Anderson's brand of centrist Republicanism in 1980; one suspects that Hansotia would be much more comfortable with this sort of direction(and that of current moderate Republicans such as Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, Arlen Specter and Christopher Shays) than she would be with the less-pragmatic Cindy Sheehans and Dennis Kucinichs of today's left

A wake up call to the democrats

Now that they have regained control of the House of Represenatives, are Democrats actually going to listen to the very people who voted them in? Don't Crash My Party is comprehensive analysis of what is wrong in Washington today. This is a great book and should be a must read for all our political leaders. As the author states, "Since 9/11 the Bust administration has twisted America's ideals beyond recognition....Democrats have been far too silent as our country was led down this destructive path." It is time for the people of America to tell our leaders that we are not happy with politics as usual and that it is time for a change. However,as this well researched, thoughtful book cannot be found at Barnes & Noble while Ann Coulter's opinionated books are prominently displayed and marketed onto the best seller list, S Hansotia's manifesto for the democratic party will likely go unnoticed. Read this book. And then write your congressmen/women and senators and tell them what you think.