If Obama is FDR, who gets to be Tom Dewey?

[Bucky]

For those of you tempted to reply "Don't worry about 2012, at least let the man get nominated first", please don't piss on me for speculating about the future; this is a discussion board, after all. Curiosity about what's coming up next doesn't hurt anyone.

Since George Bush decided to trade in his "worse than Nixon" status for some sick mash-up of Warren Harding, Herbert Hoover, and the Emperor Nero, it's clear that President Obama is going to have to follow in the footsteps of FDR for at least a few years. I don't think this past election is necessarily a realignment election like 1932 was, but it does have the potential to be so if Team Obama and Team Pelosi are able to fix the economic trainwreck the neocons have left us in.



Since this forum is about presidential politics, I'll limit my observation to the next election cycle (which it won't surprise you to find out the Republicans are already planning for). It occurred to me that the Republicans will probably be choosing between updated models of FDR's three reelection opponents: liberal Kansas governor Alf Landon, converted Republican millionaire Wendel Wilkie, and splashy hot-shot crimebuster Thomas Dewey.

In the role of Alf Landon, I think we'll see the nicest conservative reptile on the planet, Mike Huckabee, step up. Huckabee is charming and never tires of lecturing the libertarian do-nothing wing of his party of how bad it is to destroy social programs instead of just trimming them down and turning them into Bible study classes. He has been and will again be called a "liberal" for saying government can both feed the truly needy as well as depriving women control over their own bodies.

I wouldn't put much money on his chances.

The 21st century Wendell Willkie is the Republican most notable for his own conversionitis. Willkie was himself a corporate Democratic lawyer who flipped to the Republican party at the last minute in order to make himself eligible for their 1940 nomination. Then as now, Republican love of rhetoric over actual job performance got the better of them and they let Willkie be their sacrificial goat for a few months before Paris fell and everybody suddenly got serious. Our generation's GOP flipper, Mitt Romney, didn't flip quite so far as Willkie, but he certain has been a lot showier about it, going from moderate Yankee governor to rabid frothing neocon. He's already been busy setting his minions to trash-talking Sarah Palin as his foreplay to his December 2010 announcement that he's running in 2012.

Of course you can't talk about opposition to FDR without mentioning the crazed, semi-fascist Louisiana governor Huey Long. But he was a Democrat. So the comparison to Bobby Jindal isn't quite perfect. Besides, I expect Bobby Jindal to burn himself out sometime before the Republican factions start coagulating around their respective choices.

The Republican who came closest to unseating FDR was Tom Dewey. Despite her self-squawked reputation for being an anti-corruption crusader herself, I don't Sarah Palin will play the part of the little man on the wedding cake (as Margaret Truman once described Dewey). She's more like Giuliani, I think. Republicans may love her, but I don't think they're gonna vote for her in any big numbers. Frankly, I don't even think she's gonna run in 2012--not unless President Obama does such a truly abysmal job in mismanaging the economy that it's clear he's going to lose reelection (in which case they all jump in).

Sticking her toes back in the water this soon would get her a reputation as a loser while sitting it out for this next go round will preserve the fiction that it was all John McCain's fault.

I have no idea who the Republicans will find as their Tom Dewey. Not a nutcase conservative, coughHaleyBarbourcough, but maybe someone with pretensions to moderation like Tim Pawlenty or Mark Sanford. I doubt it'll be a senator. Republicans really like to go with governors who can "run against Washington." Of course whoever they end up picking will have to get nominated after whoring himself out to the fundies. But after Romney, nothing short of blowing Pat Robertson on live TV will look truly craven. Republicans are smart enough about marketing that they'll pitch it as moderation and just use the usual "code words" to ring in the wingnuts.

I'll take nominations for whoever you think might be the Dewey unit.

[bluestateguy]

1. Is Obama planning on running for 4 terms?

Because that would be the analogous role for Tom Dewey, circa 1944.

[Bucky]

2. Well, no analogy is perfect. Or think of it as time compression--things happen faster now

Two terms in 2008 is the equivalent of three terms in 1932. Or something like that.

[Bucky]

3. Just caught that: "ruinning"

After the last two terms, there's not much left to ruin.