AMERICA - Political Partisanship, View From a Political Historian

"Have Democrats Lost Sight of Their Founding Principle?" PBS Newshour 8/23/2012

Excerpt

JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour): And to the third in our series of books about American politics.

Jay Cost of "The Weekly Standard" explores the history of the Democratic Party and its evolution from the time of Andrew Jackson to the present.

In his new book, "Spoiled Rotten: How the Politics of Patronage Corrupted the Once Noble Democratic Party and Now Threatens the American Republic," Cost argues Democrats have lost their way, and that their push to get reelected overshadows the party's founding principles.

I sat down with him earlier this week.