In college all those many moons ago, I was assigned to read  Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox 1882-1940 by James MacGregor Burns. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in developing a historical understanding of the dynamics of the two-party system in this country since the Republicans became solidly pro-business and the Democrats... well, not Republicans, I guess.

I reread this portion of the book this evening and was struck by the parallels between the Democratic Party from 1924-1932 and the same party today. Allow me to quote at length:

The dreary convention fight and the dismal election results of 1924 left the Democrats divided and leaderless. "Something must be done, and done now," Roosevelt wrote in December 1924, to restore the voters' confidence in the party. But what? His almost singlehanded effort to rejuvenate the party in 1925 gave him a harsh lesson in the internal power arrangements of the Democratic Party.

[More below the fold.]

Is anybody here familiar enough with the idiosyncrasies with vote counting in Montana to explain Tester's shrinking margin as the night goes on? Is he going to hang on? The exit polls certainly look very good for him.