Steps on the Road to Realism

One Democrat's formula for "New Liberalism "

Nothing stimulates an agonizing reappraisal more than a devastating defeat. The first liberal Democrat to emerge from the ashes of last November's election with a clearly reasoned answer to the question of "What now?" is Senator Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts. In a new book called The Road from Here (Knopf, $12.95), he argues that the hard realities facing the U.S. will force liberal members of his own party to abandon many of their cherished political assumptions.

The son of emigrants from Greece, and a Republican himself until the...