The lessons of election ’12
Two political philosophers from opposite sides of the fence met at the Tsai Center Thursday to size up the factors in play during the recent presidential election, and the weight that they could take on in 2016. Bill Kristol, the editor and publisher of The Weekly Standard and a Fox News Channel commentator, and William Galston, the Ezra Zilkha Chair in the Brookings Institution’s Governance Studies Program, have met to debate such issues biennially for the past two decades. Galston, a Democrat, called the Barack Obama-Mitt Romney race a missed opportunity for the parties to clarify the big issues, and a “status quo election” in which societal and political changes that began in the mid-1960s with civil rights and immigration legislation are now rippling wide. “The second shoe has dropped, with momentous impact, and the Democrats are now getting the upside” through an increasing share of the Latino vote, Galston said. William Galston...