Franklin D. Roosevelt wasn?t always ?Franklin D. Roosevelt.?
As President Barack Obama delivers his State of Union Address on Tuesday and devises his reelection strategy, he should understand the implications of this statement and act on them. Whether this election will have major consequences for our future and what Obama?s place in history will be could both depend on the willingness of the president and Democrats to do so.
Continue ReadingObama and his advisers are likely tempted to opt for a stand-pat reelection effort because of the improving unemployment numbers. That may be enough to get him reelected. But it won?t be the sort of transformative election that could secure his place in history as a great president ? which acting on that FDR statement could achieve.
To understand why, look to the seemingly schizophrenic results of two recent polls. A December Gallup Poll found that 64 percent of Americans see Big Government as the nation?s largest threat, while only 26 percent see Big Business as the greatest threat.
A month earlier, however, 75 percent of Americans surveyed in a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll said that ?the current economic structure of the country is out of balance and favors a very small proportion of the rich over the rest of the country,? the ?power of major banks and corporations? needs to be reduced and the rich should not receive tax breaks. Sixty percent strongly agreed with this. Only 12 percent disagreed, 6 percent strongly.
How can overwhelming majorities believe both that the power of Big Business needs to be reduced and Big Government is a greater threat than Big Business?
The answer is in another response in that November poll: 74 percent said Obama has ?fallen short? of expectations in ?improving oversight of Wall Street and the banks.? Only 18 percent said he lived up to expectations. By 66 percent to 29 percent, respondents said Obama hasn?t lived up to their expectations in ?standing up to Big Business and special interests.?
So the reason most Americans fear Big Government more than Big Business is that the former has failed to control the latter ? and instead assumed the role of enabler.
If Obama were to stand up to big business, the public?s view of government ? and him ? could improve rapidly.
That brings us back to the statement above about Roosevelt and how it affects the 2012 elections ? since high, if declining, unemployment is probably the greatest obstacle to Obama?s reelection. No president for more than 70 years has been reelected with unemployment above 7.5 percent ? as it is likely to be in November.
If we go a little further back, however, unemployment was at 16.9 percent in 1936. FDR was reelected that year with 60.8 percent of the popular vote, carrying all but two states and winning the Electoral College vote 523 to 8.
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