Letter? I Never Got Any Letter, Herbert.

Obama's government is likely to be less improvisational than Roosevelt's. The head of FDR's Brain Trust, Ray Moley, once quipped that to say the New Deal was the result of a plan was like saying that a boy's bedroom strewn with used chemistry sets and old pennants had been arranged by an interior decorator.

In today's instant-gratification culture, Obama will have a much harder time meeting expectations than FDR, who merely had to show some marginal improvement in economic conditions to win big Democratic victories in Congress in 1934 and a landslide re-election in 1936. The Depression didn't end until six years after he took office, with the onset of World War II. While Obama has managed to exceed expectations in the past, he won't have the luxury of a slow recovery.

But like Roosevelt, the new president will get public credit if he moves aggressively to restore confidence. The details of the legislation in the first 100 days were less important than the sense of forward movement against the Depression and the sight of the president winning approval of 15 bills in three and a half months. Whatever happens in the first 100 days next year, Obama will need to be seen putting points on the board with splashy bill-signing ceremonies throughout 2009.

The way to win on Capitol Hill is to combine an inside game with an outside game. Roosevelt cleverly withheld 60,000 patronage jobs until Congress approved his early legislation. Obama's selection of Rahm Emanuel as chief of staff is partly related to the fact that dozens of members of Congress owe their jobs to Emanuel's successful efforts to win back the House for Democrats in 2006.

As for the outside game, FDR knew during the transition that he could use the new medium of his day, radio, to rally the country. Obama already knows that he can be inspirational on TV but that he won't fully succeed in transforming America unless he exploits the new medium of our day, the Internet, to ignite an era of civic action. We've already had the first fireside Web chat. For all Obama's promise, it somehow sounded better on the wireless.

© 2008