We often want to believe that Democrats should get the votes of voters from the vast ranks of ordinary people (as opposed to "the haves and the have mores" that Bush-2 calls his base) if only those voters would recognize their own self-interest and not be distracted by wedge issues. The essence of this argument is that Democrats do things to benefit ordinary people when they're in control of the agenda, whereas Republicans only benefit the elites.
Is this really true if we look at the performance of Democrats AFTER the New Deal? I don't know the answer, but I tried to put together lists of what the major accomplishments were that Democratic Presidents from Truman on could take credit for to see what it looked like. Maybe you can add to, delete from or otherwise correct what follows.
NOTE: corrected to remove Tokyo bombing from Truman, OKC from Clinton, as noted by replies; add Clinton's fixing of Republican deficit mess. (2007-03-27)
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