Finding the Third Way

Lessons in the Politics of Civility from My Journey through History

by Lanny Davis

From befriending George W. Bush and Hillary Clinton at Yale to defending Bill Clinton and earning a reputation as “the da Vinci of spin,” a legendary political adviser takes readers behind the curtain of three decades of US history, the decline of civility in the Trump era, and how both parties can regain their faith in America by restoring it.

Beginning with his early days on the Yale campus with two future presidents, three future senators, and three future governors, few politicos have found themselves closer to the people who matter most in both American political parties in the past three decades than Lanny Davis.

Shortly after graduating from Yale Law School in the early 1970s, Davis first met Hillary Rodham—a promising law student he thought would be the first president of the baby boomer generation . . . until she introduced him to an up-and-coming political star named Bill Clinton. 

It was in their first conversations about the deep divisions brought on by the Vietnam War that Clinton said, “Back in Arkansas, to solve a problem, we learned you can’t just attack and label people. It’s not about ‘right’ versus ‘left’—it’s about finding a third way that solves a problem, with each side giving in a little.” At that moment, Davis began to reconsider whether Hillary would make it to the White House first.

The “Third Way” that Clinton described was not a mushy center where there were no principles, just compromise. It was a new brand of politics that started with principled liberalism and conservatism and ended on common ground such as wariness of government overreach and protection of individual liberty.

As both an FDR liberal Democrat and a friend of future Republican President George W. Bush, Davis found this Third Way philosophy to be a natural fit. After learning the ways of Washington from the likes of Edward Bennett Williams and Tommy Boggs while a partner at the landmark law firm Patton Boggs, he became the go-to crisis manager for the Clinton White House and a respected figure on all sides of the spectrum as the Third Way became the dominant political force of the 1990s and 2000s.

Finding the Third Way is a refreshingly candid insider journey through the highest levels of government, applying the lessons of the Clinton years to offer a fresh perspective on how liberals can reconnect with “Trump Democrats” and how both parties can regain their faith in the American political system.