C-SPAN THIRD PARTY DEBATE
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C-SPAN THIRD PARTY VP DEBATED NOVEMBER 2
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A Tale of Two Fine Roosevelts
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The symbol of change has shown himself to be changeable, and there is plenty he can alter. Franklin Roosevelt, for example, was an unashamed politician from the anti-Tammany wing of the New York Democratic Party, one who made no bones about his love of party as well as politics, and who eventually redefined the very meaning of partisanship with his New Deal policies. Obama, on the contrary, has touted a fuzzy postpartisanship and promised to end "politics as usual" in Washington. If he is to be more Rooseveltian, he will need to master the arts of transactional politics (and not "transformational" posturing) at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, take his inevitable place as Democratic Party leader (especially if the Democrats win large congressional majorities) and assume responsibility as such.
There are also lessons that Obama can learn from the example of Theodore Roosevelt. Obama has thus far enjoyed what looks like an extremely lucky career in politics. The only truly difficult battle he has fought until now was with Hillary Clinton for the nomination, a contest he won only barely. When his campaign against John McCain ran into trouble, the financial collapse completely altered the electoral calculus. Through it all, Obama has been able to be very much the detached, cool customer, the same man who, in his brief time in the Senate, showed no zeal for risky political conflict.
Theodore Roosevelt sometimes had a weakness for tough-guy bombast and braggadocio. But he also knew, from experience as well as temperament, that a successful president cannot always be cool, detached and Olympian, let alone bipartisan, and that events will force him to take risks. To transcend what he called "the twister pride of cynicism," Roosevelt proclaimed in 1910 it is not enough to be thoughtful or even popular; it requires becoming what he called the man "in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood," who fights with the certainty that, even if he fails, "his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." Should Barack Obama become president next January, as now looks almost certain, he will be the man in the cruel arena whether he likes it or not.
Wilentz, a Princeton historian and the author, most recently, of “The Age of Reagan: A History, 19742008,” is a NEWSWEEK contributing editor.
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