In 1960, Democrats state plainly that they are open to “higher taxes [and] we will not allow political disadvantage to deter us from doing what is required.” Four years later, they call for tax cuts. Then, in 1968, they explain that in some years, reductions are necessary “to stimulate the economy” while at other times, the nation needs “tax increases to restrain inflation.”

In 1972, Democrats endorse federal aid to non-public schools, but in later years, the party’s definition of reform embraces public charter schools while rejecting vouchers for private and particularly parochial schools.

The second Clinton platform, in 1996, adopts language about fighting crime that earlier Democrats had rejected as nearly un-American. “Today’s Democratic Party believes the first responsibility of government is law and order,” the ’96 document says. In 1972, the party slammed the Nixon administration for using those same words, “ ‘law and order,’ as justification for repression and political persecution.”

The most radical statement of the party’s liberal vision appears in 1972, when the platform proposes to “guarantee a job for all,” greatly expand public employment, immediately withdraw all U.S. troops from Vietnam, abolish the Electoral College, break up corporate monopolies and “establish a system of universal National Health Insurance which covers all Americans . . . federally-financed and federally-administered.”Democrats soon back off that concept, vaguely suggesting in 1992 “a uniquely American reform of the health-care system” and then settling in later years for just making care more affordable.But in 2008, harking back to the party’s earlier, broader sense of government’s role, the idea of “guaranteed affordable, comprehensive health care” returns.