Party Like It's 1932: The Obama Option

Seventy-six years ago, to many ears on the left, Franklin D. Roosevelt sounded way too much like a centrist. True, he was eloquent, and he'd generated enthusiasm in a Democratic base eager to evict Republicans from the White House. But his campaign was moderate -- with policy proposals that didn't indicate he would try to take the country in bold new directions if he won the presidency.

Yet FDR's triumph in 1932 opened the door for progressives. After several years of hitting the Hoover administration's immovable walls, the organizing capacities of labor and other downtrodden constituencies could have major impacts on policy decisions in Washington.

Today, segments of the corporate media have teamed up with the Clinton campaign to attack Barack Obama. Many of the rhetorical weapons used against him in recent weeks -- from invocations of religious faith and guns to flag-pin lapels -- may as well have been ripped from a Karl Rove playbook. The key subtexts have included racial stereotyping and hostility to a populist upsurge.

Do we have a major stake in this fight? Does it really matter whether Hillary Clinton or Obama wins the Democratic nomination? Is it very important to prevent John McCain from moving into the White House?

The answers that make sense to me are yes, yes and yes.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

In 1932, there were scant signs that Franklin Delano Roosevelt might become a progressive president. By the summer of that election year, when he accepted the Democratic Party's nomination for president, his "only left-wing statements had been exceedingly vague," according to FDR biographer Frank Freidel.

Just weeks before the 1932 general election, Roosevelt laid out a plan for mandated state unemployment insurance nationwide along with social welfare. Even then, he insisted on remaining what we now call a fiscal conservative. "Obviously he had not faced up to the magnitude of expenditure that his program would involve," Freidel recounts. "Obviously too, he had not in the slightest accepted the views of those who felt that the way out of the Depression was large-scale public spending and deficit financing."

Six days later, on October 19, FDR delivered a speech in Pittsburgh that blasted the federal budget for its "reckless and extravagant" spending. He pledged "to reduce the cost of current federal government operations by 25 percent." And he proclaimed: "I regard reduction in federal spending as one of the most important issues of this campaign." If he'd stuck to such positions, the New Deal would never have happened.

As the fall campaign came to a close, the Nation magazine lamented that "neither of the two great parties, in the midst of the worst depression in our history, has had the intelligence or courage to propose a single fundamental measure that might conceivably put us on the road to recovery." Looking back on the 1932 campaign, Freidel was to comment: "Indeed, in many respects, for all the clash and clamor, Roosevelt and President Hoover had not differed greatly from each other."

The Socialist Party's Norman Thomas, running for president again that year, had a strong basis for his critique of both major-party candidates in 1932. But in later elections, when Thomas ran yet again, many former supporters found enough to admire in FDR's presidency to switch over and support the incumbent for re-election.

"The Roosevelt reforms went far beyond previous legislation," historian Howard Zinn has written. Those reforms were not only a response to a crisis in the system. They also met a need "to head off the alarming growth of spontaneous rebellion in the early years of the Roosevelt administration -- organization of tenants and the unemployed, movements of self-help, general strikes in several cities."

Major progressive successes under the New Deal happened in sync with stellar achievements in grassroots organizing. So, in Zinn's words, "Where organized labor was strong, Roosevelt moved to make some concessions to working people." The New Deal was not all it could have been, no doubt, but to a large extent it was a stupendous result of historic synergies -- made possible by massive pressure from the grassroots and a president often willing to respond in the affirmative.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Support of a candidate does not -- or at least should not -- mean silence about disagreement. There shouldn't be any abatement of advocacy for progressive positions, whether opposition to nuclear power plants, insistence on complete withdrawal of the U.S. military and mercenaries from Iraq, or activism for a universal single-payer healthcare system.

For good reasons, Obama doesn't say "I am the one we've been waiting for." He says in speech after speech: "We are the ones we've been waiting for." Whether that ends up being largely rhetoric or profoundly real depends not on him nearly so much as on us.

A crucial task between now and November is to get Obama elected as president while shifting the congressional mix toward a progressive majority. Next year will bring the imperative of organizing to exert powerful pressure from the base for progressive change.

At a recent caucus in California's 6th congressional district, I was elected as an Obama delegate to the Democratic National Convention. It's clear to me that Obama is now the best choice among those with a chance to become the next president.

Barack Obama has the potential to become as great a president as Franklin Roosevelt -- while social and political movements in the United States have the potential to become as great as those that made the New Deal possible. I seriously doubt that Hillary Clinton has such potential. And John McCain offers only more of the kind of horrific presidency that the world has endured for the last 87 months.

Comments

[Gibbons]

If you must compare him to someone it should be George McGovern not FDR.

[birdandcat]

. One of the mistakes many D's make is to assume that Roosevelt won the popular vote by having this laundry list of promises He was largely vague but did promise to end the depression by balancing the budget. Being a policy wonk does not win the White House. So we've had a slew of candidates losing the presidency based in part on a misreading of history. You win by excitng the crowd having a simple message and being likeable. It helps to have the economy moving in the direction that helps you.

Stevenson had thoughtful intellectual speeches, but the public liked Ike. Kennedy faced anti Catholic bigotry but had Nixon crushed on liekability. These rules are perfect Hunmphrey faced too very distasteful characters and barely lost. Hillary supporters take heart , she could be D's Nixon)

by and large the professional pundit class does a pretty poor job of sorting the trends from the flotsam and jetsam that ride with them. Dukakis lost becuase he looked ridiculous riding in a tank, Kerry lost becuase he was windsurfing, Gore lost because he sighed and wore earth tones. Rubbish, When we nominate poor campaigners ( mrs clinton?) we deminish the likelihood of winning in a close race. .This is likely moot as Sen Obama will, barring a major gaffe (I said MAJOR), get the nomination. after that it will be the economy versus race.
If HL mencken were alive today I presume he would be betting on McCain

[S1m0n]

Being the first black president is a radical proposition all on its own. In consequence, Obama's platform had to be safer-than-safe, or he'd have been rapidly consigned to the margins, just like Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson were.

Before the public is ready for a Mohammed Ali, there's gotta be a Jackie Robinson.

~~

But while Obama's platform is fairly safe, his vision of government diverges widely--probably more widely than today's political discourse can communicate--from the prevailing ideology of the past 25 years.

For 25 years government has been the problem, and pols from right and left have competed to draw it's fangs. Acceptance of this proposition concedes a structural advantage to Republican party which is why the only democrat to win office during this era had to govern from the much the same playbook as the right.

Obama rejects that view. To him government had better be the answer, because government is "we the people" in action, and history records that when we the people decide on something, we're unstoppable.

[Herrington]

Fiscal responsibilty and social activism. In other words, don't throw money at problems, throw brain power at them. And throw the might of a grassroots political activism at the politicans that stand in the way of progress. That, "my dear friends"(tm) John McCain, is a future.

[missjabez]

I've often thought Obama resembled FDR. Obama could mobilize the nation like FDR did. Nasty Hillary might sneer at Obama's speeches and idealism, but I think a lof of people want to be inspired, instead of hearing the same old cynical same old. I know I do.

[puakev]

Hillary Clinton is playing the role of Al Smith, another New Yorker who thought that to win, you had to act like a Republican. And we saw just how right on the money Al Smith was.

[lisakaz2]

I wasn't sure where you were going with 1932. Keep in mind that Hitler was named Chancellor in January 1933. I thought this was going to be a Colbert moment.

[tedbear]

I cannot believe there are not posts to your article. It is FANTASTIC! Thank you.

[Petey]

Thanks for the terrific analysis!