Susan Dunn: All the President's Meddling
[Susan Dunn, the author of the forthcoming “Roosevelt’s Gamble: How F.D.R. Fought to Change the Democratic Party,” is a professor at Williams College.]
Williamstown, Mass.
“PRESIDENT OBAMA is not only president of the country, but head of the Democratic Party,” said Doug Sosnik, the political director in the Clinton White House, commenting on President Obama’s aggressive move to quash the election hopes of New York’s deeply unpopular governor, David Paterson, and to pick favorites in gubernatorial and Senate primaries in Colorado, Pennsylvania, Virginia and elsewhere. But history shows that a White House push to intervene in state races is fraught with danger.
In 1938, in the middle of his second term, Franklin D. Roosevelt found himself stuck. Two years earlier, every state in the union — except Maine and Vermont — had joined in a collective vote of confidence in Roosevelt and the New Deal. But that overwhelming mandate proved to be anything but shatterproof.
Even though Democrats held staggering majorities in both chambers of Congress, that huge Democratic majority was deceptive. Conservative Democrats — senators like Millard Tydings of Maryland, Walter George of Georgia and Ellison Smith of South Carolina — allied themselves with Republicans to obstruct and vote down key New Deal bills. Yet when Roosevelt ran for re-election in 1936, none of those Democrats had had the courage to criticize him. On the contrary, they gave lip service to the New Deal — and then, insisting that they were only voting their consciences, proceeded to knife it.
Concerned about his progressive agenda as well as about the next presidential election in 1940, Roosevelt decided to intervene in state primaries — tantamount to the November election in the one-party Democratic South — and support challengers to the conservative incumbents.
In a fireside chat in June 1938, he carefully explained that as president, he would not intervene in Democratic primaries. But, as the head of the Democratic Party, he said, it was his right and duty to support liberal candidates who stood by the New Deal. In addition, he believed that the nation should have two effective and responsible political parties, one liberal, the other conservative, each ideologically consistent and united. Newspapers branded his tactic a “purge” — and the inflammatory label stuck...
... In the end, the purge was one of the few glaring political missteps in Roosevelt’s long career, and afterward he had to struggle to make amends and repair relations with the men he had tried to oust. As it turned out, many of the Democratic conservatives — especially those from the South — whom Roosevelt had sought to banish were staunch internationalists who would soon become his loyal allies as he battled isolationists over America’s role in World War II.
Will President Obama and his White House team learn the lessons of the purge of 1938? Franklin Roosevelt’s political vision of party realignment was compelling; and yet the purge was hastily contrived and its execution amateurish...
Read entire article at NYT
Williamstown, Mass.
“PRESIDENT OBAMA is not only president of the country, but head of the Democratic Party,” said Doug Sosnik, the political director in the Clinton White House, commenting on President Obama’s aggressive move to quash the election hopes of New York’s deeply unpopular governor, David Paterson, and to pick favorites in gubernatorial and Senate primaries in Colorado, Pennsylvania, Virginia and elsewhere. But history shows that a White House push to intervene in state races is fraught with danger.
In 1938, in the middle of his second term, Franklin D. Roosevelt found himself stuck. Two years earlier, every state in the union — except Maine and Vermont — had joined in a collective vote of confidence in Roosevelt and the New Deal. But that overwhelming mandate proved to be anything but shatterproof.
Even though Democrats held staggering majorities in both chambers of Congress, that huge Democratic majority was deceptive. Conservative Democrats — senators like Millard Tydings of Maryland, Walter George of Georgia and Ellison Smith of South Carolina — allied themselves with Republicans to obstruct and vote down key New Deal bills. Yet when Roosevelt ran for re-election in 1936, none of those Democrats had had the courage to criticize him. On the contrary, they gave lip service to the New Deal — and then, insisting that they were only voting their consciences, proceeded to knife it.
Concerned about his progressive agenda as well as about the next presidential election in 1940, Roosevelt decided to intervene in state primaries — tantamount to the November election in the one-party Democratic South — and support challengers to the conservative incumbents.
In a fireside chat in June 1938, he carefully explained that as president, he would not intervene in Democratic primaries. But, as the head of the Democratic Party, he said, it was his right and duty to support liberal candidates who stood by the New Deal. In addition, he believed that the nation should have two effective and responsible political parties, one liberal, the other conservative, each ideologically consistent and united. Newspapers branded his tactic a “purge” — and the inflammatory label stuck...
... In the end, the purge was one of the few glaring political missteps in Roosevelt’s long career, and afterward he had to struggle to make amends and repair relations with the men he had tried to oust. As it turned out, many of the Democratic conservatives — especially those from the South — whom Roosevelt had sought to banish were staunch internationalists who would soon become his loyal allies as he battled isolationists over America’s role in World War II.
Will President Obama and his White House team learn the lessons of the purge of 1938? Franklin Roosevelt’s political vision of party realignment was compelling; and yet the purge was hastily contrived and its execution amateurish...