FDR made the modern Democratic Party.

[Drunken Irishman]

He had more influence on a single political party than any politician in modern American history. It sounds like a hyperbole, but as I stated in another thread, prior to Roosevelt, the Democrats were not a national party. They rarely ever succeeded in presidential politics, only winning the White House four times between Lincoln and Roosevelt's victory over Hoover. It's even worse when you realize that in a span of 64 years, after Andrew Johnson finished out Lincoln's second term, only two Democrats would hold the presidency until Roosevelt's victory in 1932: Cleveland and Wilson. Cleveland had lost his reelection bid to Harrison, however, managed to defeat Harrison four years later, while Wilson was aided by Teddy Roosevelt running as a third party candidate, splitting the Republican vote. Even in his reelection bid, had Wilson lost California, he would have lost the presidency.

So in 64 years, the Democrats only served 16 of that. The rest were Republican and that carried over after Wilson left office, as the Republicans would win three straight presidential elections.

Then a governor from New York came along and won the presidency. Not only won, but manhandled his way to victory. He served three terms and a year, eventually dying in office in 1945, or 64 years ago this month. Then when Truman won his election in 1948, for the first time since James Buchanan's victory 90 years earlier, a Democrat successfully succeeded a Democrat. For almost 100 years, there was not a stretch where the Democrats had two candidates, let alone more, succeed one another.

Since Roosevelt's death 64 years ago, there have been six elected Democratic presidents (Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Clinton and Obama) compared to five for the Republicans (Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, Bush and Bush). You know who deserves most of the credit there? FDR. FDR was the first Democrat to really break through nationally. Not only did he win, he won convincingly in every election and did it four times. Roosevelt served 12 years as president and had he not died, would have served the exact amount of years as any Democrat combined had held the White House during the 64 years prior. That's amazing and what it brought was a fundamental shift in the national political scene.

Roosevelt took the Democratic Party from a solid and successful local and state run party and made it national. That's why the right hates him so much, because he was the first real great Democratic President in the modern times and it allowed the Democrats to find a footing on the national stage. It gave an opening to Truman and then Kennedy and Johnson, Carter, Clinton and finally, Pres. Obama.

Roosevelt's legacy as a president is great, but his legacy to the Democratic Party should be commended by any Democrat, because without it, it's very likely the party falters and never finds its footing on the national stage.

It took a great leader like Roosevelt to show the American people the Democrats could lead this country. Prior to him, Americans didn't vote for many Democratic presidents. They sure do now.

[leftstreet]

1. And the DLC is hellbent on destroying it n/t

[Triana]

2. Unfortunately, you're right. :( n/t

[wyldwolf]

6. and "progressives" have been hell bent on destroying it for 70 years

[LooseWilly]

3. A nice spot of history that.

Quite informative, in fact. I don't think I've ever really considered FDR from that perspective.

Of course, I'm assuming that the other thread in question is the one that questions his merits as a "liberal", or a "icon for liberals" or some such.

So I can't help but wonder, are we now conflating the term "Democrat" and "Liberal"? Again? I seem to remember something like 8 years ago the Democrats were running from the term Liberal like it had a bad case of the crabs...

If not, if this is just a lesson on FDR's contributions to the Democratic Party... then I'll leave it at thank you for the new perspective.

[Drunken Irishman]

4. Just a history lesson.

It's easy to forget what the Democratic Party was like pre-Roosevelt, since there aren't many people who were old enough back then to really remember the Republican dominance at the national level.

[old mark]

5. Thanks for posting this. It seems that FDR has been taking

a lot of heat for "starting WWII" or knowing well in advance about the Japanese attack on Hawaii and letting it happen so we would be involved in the war and also for being some sore of terrible despot.
Franklin Roosevelt saved the country from the very real threat of extremists - right and left - who were all over the world at the time. There were radio and newspaper figures of the 1930's who make Rush seem liberal or at least nearly human.

FDR's rep has been attacked by the GOP for decades, and its time to restore it.

mark

[wyldwolf]

7. Read Jonathan Chait's piece at TNR that totally dismantles the GOP's anti-FDR cult

Now here is the extremely strange thing about The Forgotten Man: it does not really argue that the New Deal failed. In fact, Shlaes does not make any actual argument at all, though she does venture some bold claims, which she both fails to substantiate and contradicts elsewhere. Reviewing her book in The New York Times, David Leonhardt noted that Shlaes makes her arguments "mostly by implication." This is putting it kindly. Shlaes introduces the book by asserting her thesis, but she barely even tries to demonstrate it. Instead she chooses to fill nearly four hundred pages with stories that mostly go nowhere. The experience of reading The Forgotten Man is more like talking to an old person who lived through the Depression than it is like reading an actual history of the Depression. Major events get cursory treatment while minor characters, such as an idiosyncratic black preacher or the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, receive lengthy portraits. Having been prepared for a revisionist argument against the New Deal, I kept wondering if I had picked up the wrong book...

http://www.tnr.com/booksarts/story.html?id=82c53220-7594-4ece-a136-a3b2f54243ec&p=2

[Drunken Irishman]

8. Obama will be very similar to FDR if he succeeds.

A president who didn't cater to the extremes of either side and that's going to be the undoing of the right when it comes to dealing with Obama, just as it was with FDR. The people loved FDR and he may have been our most beloved president. They didn't accept the attacks, which is why he won a landslide election four times. Even after his death, even after those who lived during that era have died off, his legacy is still pretty much intact, even though the Republicans have been trying to tarnish it for the last 40 years.

Like I mentioned above, the right hates FDR because he not only pulled America into the 20th Century economically and militarily, he brought the Democratic Party out of the national abyss and made it relevant in presidential politics for the first time ever. Sure, Democrats have tried to piss that away in the past by nominating the likes of McGovern, Mondale and Dukakis, but we've gotten it right the last four times with Clinton, Gore, Kerry and Obama. They might be 2-2, but the Democrats haven't been blown out in a presidential race since 1988 and the Republicans have been blown out in three presidential elections since Bush's 1988 landslide (1992, 1996 and 2008).

[Arkana]

9. And to think that they called FDR a traitor to his class.