In fall 2005, the Republican Party experienced a long, sleepless night. Concerned with Iraq, confounded by Katrina and cast into despair by Harriet Miers, party activists worried about the party’s future.

During this dusk, Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam took to the pages of The Weekly Standard to urge Republicans to embrace the first light of a new era. How? By winning back working-class voters, or “Sam’s Club Republicans,” to use Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s phrase. In Washington, the article was widely read and well-regarded. The incomparable Michael Barone was so impressed he suggested that “numerous copies get over to the White House.”

Now, three years later, Douthat and Salam, both writers at The Atlantic, have expanded their article into a book, “Grand New Party: How the Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream.” They define working-class voters as “the non-college-educated voters who make up roughly half of the American electorate” and describe them as the swing voters. . .LINK