Quote Of The Day: Is 2008 A 1932 Hoover Versus Roosevelt Rerun?

The political Quote of the Day comes from the Washington Post’s always-solid columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr., who makes the case that the 2008 Barack Obama versus John McCain election has echoes of the 1932 FDR versus Herbert Hoover election. A key quote:

Obama and McCain are giving us a clear sense of who they are and how they would lead. It would seem that Obama has been studying the 1932 campaign of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The key to Roosevelt’s victory was not a big program but a jaunty sense of optimism in the midst of despair that led to his signature inaugural line — “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Less famously, Roosevelt declared in his acceptance speech that “this is no time for fear, for reaction or for timidity.”

In recent days, Obama has painted himself as calm, pragmatic, open and hopeful. He seemed to be channeling FDR when he told a crowd in Indianapolis on Wednesday: “This isn’t a time for fear or for panic. This is a time for resolve and steady leadership.”

As for McCain, his campaign is trying to sow fear and panic about Obama. That’s exactly what Herbert Hoover tried to do with Roosevelt. Days before the 1932 election, Hoover attacked Roosevelt’s “inchoate New Deal.” He predicted it would “crack the timbers of the Constitution” and warned voters to beware of the “glitter of promise.”

Hoover stopped short of declaring Roosevelt a celebrity. But Donald A. Ritchie reports in his excellent 2007 book, “Electing FDR,” that Hoover saw Roosevelt as “his weakest and most vulnerable” foe and “did not respect him as a political rival.” McCain conveys unmistakably that he feels the same way about “that one” running against him.

It’s too early to predict that the 2008 campaign will turn out like the one in 1932. But history suggests that in American elections, the candidate who underestimates his opponent often loses, and hope almost always beats fear.

It’s also notable what fear each candidate seems to be raising, intentionally or (giving them the benefit of the doubt) otherwise.

McCain and his supporters are raising fears about Obama’s trustworthiness, some charge about Obama’s race (via code words), his patriotism (associations), his trustworthiness (is he really a far leftist?), his competence, his seriousness, and his accomplishments. Obama is raising fears about McCain continuing more of the same (that he’ll be Bush Lite — or Bush on Steroids, depending on your view), some charge he’s indirectly raising the age issue. And Obama is raising fears about McCain’s stability (erratic).

On the latter point, Obama doesn’t have to raise it. In recent weeks a pundit and some people I met while traveling all asked the same question: Can you imagine what might have happened if McCain had been President during the 1960s Missile Crisis? They’ve concluded that McCain is hot-headed and impulsive.

Both camps are raising fears about perceptions out there and seek to accentuate them.

But Dionne is talking about an overall campaign narrative of hope. McCain’s campaign is now seemingly consumed with pressing the warnings about Obama. That sucks up air time, ink time and bandwidth that could be otherwise devoted to policy suggestions and statements assuring America that it’ll come out of the dark days ahead. Obama has hammered home the theme that Americans can come out of this although it might not be easy.

The larger question is this: what happens if a candidate who has spent the final four weeks of a campaign raising fears wins? What kind of power and mandate does he have if he gets into office? What happens if he gets into the White House but this message didn’t resonate beyond the Presidential race, so Congress is overwhelmingly controlled by the other party? What kind of clout will this President have as he tries to navigate the United States through two wars and the worst financial crisis in several generations?

And what if it turns out that the election isn’t a re-run of 1932 but of 1928, when Democratic Presidential candidate Gov. Al Smith lost, partially because voters weren’t ready for a Catholic as President? What happens if polls going into Election Day show Obama with a 5, 8, or even 10 point lead — which doesn’t materialize as a win on Election Day?