A WHILE BACK, I mentioned my law school classmate Gene Sperling’s new book, The Pro-Growth Progressive: An Economic Strategy for Shared Prosperity. (Perhaps more significantly than having been my law school classmate, he was also National Economic Advisor and head of the National Economic Council under President Clinton).

Sperling will be debating economic policy over at the TPMCafe book club starting tomorrow. It’s important to recognize this book, and debate, for what it is: An effort to recapture the debate over economic policy from the anti-growth types who dominate economic discussion on the left these days, something that has huge importance for the 2008 campaign. Although I don’t agree with all the specifics in Sperling’s book — about which I’ll be writing more later — he’s got the most important part right. Economic growth is good, and it’s actually especially beneficial for those at the bottom of the economic ladder.