Bob Edwards, Editor

It’s universal and timeless. From time to time, fanatics turn up in every political party. They’re usually the hardest workers and are often mighty effective. They are attractive but fatally attractive. Someone has got to purge them and that someone has got to be strong. Franklin Delano Roosevelt wheedled Left-Wingers (the real bad ones) out of the U.S. Democratic Party  in the 1930s. In Canada, Tommy Douglas purged the Saskatchewan NDP (then called the CCF) of Communists and then led North America’s first Socialist government. Ernest Manning purged Nazis out of the Social Credit Party in Alberta after William Aberhardt died. Even Hitler and Stalin had to liquidate hotheads more hotheaded than they.

Many – including I – thought the U.S. Democratic Party was headed to factional oblivion. We were wrong.