Malaise of People and Party

The Party’s Over By David S. Broder

Harper, 280 pp., $7.95 In 1920, when Warren Harding swept into the White House, the Republicans gained 63 House seats and eleven Senate seats; the Democrats were left with about a dozen House seats outside the South. In 1932, Franklin Roosevelt’s victory added 97 House seats and twelve Senate to the Democratic total. Even in 1948, when Harry Truman’s margin of victory was only 4.4 per cent nationwide and when slightly changed results in a few large states could have given the election to his Republican opponent, the Democratic Party gained 75 representatives and nine senators to take overwhelming control of Congress.