It's the Common Good Stupid!

From BBC news:

"Speaking recently at Georgetown University in the nation's capital, President Bill Clinton described the "relentless search for the Common Good", as a quest to "devise policies that promote equal opportunity, shared responsibility and inclusive community".

He was speaking in the same wood-panelled hall where 15 years earlier he delivered an identical vision for America. At the time, he called it The New Covenant - so it's old wine in new wine skins if you like.

And it is no coincidence that Bill Clinton chose to talk about the "Common Good" at a Jesuit-founded university (also his alma mater). The term is straight out of Catholic social teaching.

Meanwhile for the last 20 years the religious right has, with great success, portrayed God as a Republican.

"I think Catholics resonate to this," says John Podesta, Bill Clinton's former chief of staff, whose Center for American Progress is promoting the new slogan.

"I think it does connect to people who are looking for a higher purpose in their own lives and in the life of the country."

Mr Podesta insists the Common Good is a philosophical perspective that can bring those on the right and left together. He points out that the founding fathers also used it."