The Real Majority: An Extraordinary Examination of the American Electorate

by Richard M. Scammon and Ben J. Wattenberg

Book Overview

With a new introduction for the '90s, this classic work on the American electorate is as alive and as relevant as it was when first written. The Real Majority discovered and defined the middle class,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• ISBN: B001L110F6
• Release Date: January 1971
• Publisher: New York Coward McCann & Geoghegan 1971.
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.

Customer Reviews

an important historical work

I read this after getting an early copy of Kuhn's "Neglected Voter," which seems to tell the story of the what this book foresaw occurring: the loss of the "plain people" from the Democratic Party. Yet where Kuhn shows it was men who eventually left, and he is more of a writing so that reads more powerfully, this book is striking for its historical foresight and merit. I'm still pondering this book, here and there. But it seems that for anyone studying American politics, this is a must read, along with "the vital center," the "emerging Republican majority," and I would say that new book "the neglected voter." But the real majority may just be the most prescient of the lot.

Still a very important book

A classic in its time, this book by two prominent Democrats attempted to warn the Democratic Party not to pander to "trendy" groups of voters, but instead to focus on the "unpoor, unblack and unyoung" (that is, the average American voter) in order to achieve success at the polls. Much has changed in this country in the intervening thirty-odd years, but its message is one that, actually, the Republicans have been heeding more nationally. That is why of the seven Presidents who have served since this book was written, only two were Democrats, and those two were both Southern governors and at least attempted to sound like moderates (one may have been a genuine moderate). The last Northern Democrat to occupy the White House was John F. Kennedy.