FOR SOME YEARS, political insiders have spoken of “neoliberalism,” but without much clarity as to what that label might stand for. To its critics, it has been nothing more than the vague “new ideas” of Gary Hart’s abortive presidential campaign supplemented by the views of Charles Peters and some of his colleagues at the Washington Monthly. To its proponents, it has been a set of principles that might recapture for the Democratic Party its faltering hold on the American middle class by assuring these voters that Democrats share their fears and hopes. Among those proponents are many key advisors to Bill Clinton, including people from the Democratic Leadership Council and the Progressive Policy Institute.