James Doty: Obama-FDR Parallel Should Make Dems Shiver in '10
[James Doty is a writer and lawyer living in New York.]
Comparisons between President Obama and Franklin Roosevelt often assume that Obama’s electoral fortunes will rise the closer he hews to FDR. A look at past election results, though, suggests that Obama is indeed heading down a path trod by FDR -- one that bodes ill for Democrats’ hopes this fall.
Obama’s tenure has frequently been likened to the first few years of the FDR administration, but the better comparison is probably to 1937 and 1938. That period, like the current environment, is thick with charges of socialism and communism, as well as more mundane calls for lower taxes and a balanced budget. These are, by now, the most frequently-deployed tools in the conservative arsenal, but they were, if not first forged, then first sharpened in 1937 with the publication of the Conservative Manifesto. (Among the principles espoused in this right-wing Decalogue were revision of the tax code, reduced federal expenditures, a balanced budget, and the "maintenance of state rights.")
As now, the increasingly frantic criticisms of federal action in 1937 and 1938 can be traced to a difficult economic climate. In 1938, the unemployment rate was a catastrophic 19% (nearly double the current rate. And as now, the opponents of the president argued that the economic turbulence was aggravated by his policies, which allegedly created a climate of uncertainty that was hostile to economic growth....
Read entire article at Salon
Comparisons between President Obama and Franklin Roosevelt often assume that Obama’s electoral fortunes will rise the closer he hews to FDR. A look at past election results, though, suggests that Obama is indeed heading down a path trod by FDR -- one that bodes ill for Democrats’ hopes this fall.
Obama’s tenure has frequently been likened to the first few years of the FDR administration, but the better comparison is probably to 1937 and 1938. That period, like the current environment, is thick with charges of socialism and communism, as well as more mundane calls for lower taxes and a balanced budget. These are, by now, the most frequently-deployed tools in the conservative arsenal, but they were, if not first forged, then first sharpened in 1937 with the publication of the Conservative Manifesto. (Among the principles espoused in this right-wing Decalogue were revision of the tax code, reduced federal expenditures, a balanced budget, and the "maintenance of state rights.")
As now, the increasingly frantic criticisms of federal action in 1937 and 1938 can be traced to a difficult economic climate. In 1938, the unemployment rate was a catastrophic 19% (nearly double the current rate. And as now, the opponents of the president argued that the economic turbulence was aggravated by his policies, which allegedly created a climate of uncertainty that was hostile to economic growth....