In college all those many moons ago, I was assigned to read Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox 1882-1940 by James MacGregor Burns. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in developing a historical understanding of the dynamics of the two-party system in this country since the Republicans became solidly pro-business and the Democrats... well, not Republicans, I guess.
I reread this portion of the book this evening and was struck by the parallels between the Democratic Party from 1924-1932 and the same party today. Allow me to quote at length:
The dreary convention fight and the dismal election results of 1924 left the Democrats divided and leaderless. "Something must be done, and done now," Roosevelt wrote in December 1924, to restore the voters' confidence in the party. But what? His almost singlehanded effort to rejuvenate the party in 1925 gave him a harsh lesson in the internal power arrangements of the Democratic Party.
[More below the fold.]
For those unfamiliar, the Dems had a nasty convention fight in '24 between eastern liberals behind Al Smith and southern and western conservative populists behind William McAdoo. Because the nomination required a 2/3 majority in those days, neither could muster the votes and John Davis was named the compromise nominee on the 103rd ballot. His candidacy was smashed by Calvin Coolidge by over seven million votes. Complicating things further was the presence of a leftist third party, the Progressives, led by Robert La Follette. Nader, anyone?
He had long worried over the condition of the party. His campaign in 1920 had confirmed his suspicions that the party's machinery was archaic and outgrown, as he wrote to Cordell Hull, national chairman of the party, late in 1921.
I should also note that FDR was James Cox's running mate against Harding in 1920, so his clout within the party during the 20's, despite his paralysis, was nontrivial.
Hull agreed but could do nothing. Three years later the picture seemed blacker. There was room, Roosevelt, for but two parties. The Republican party was conservative; "the Democratic Party is the Progressive Party of the country," he insisted. The progressives had been badly divided in 1924. But there must be no overtures to the La Follette party; all progressives must get together in the Democratic party.
So much was clear to him. But could the Democratic party be made into an instrument for winning elections and governing the country? Not unless it was reformed, he felt. He was appalled by the lack of national organization -- the national headquarters consisted of "two ladies occupying one room in a Washington office building," he said impatiently. The man Davis had bequeathed as national chairman, Clem Shaver, was out visiting millionaires asking them to endorse notes for the party.
Terry McAuliffe, anyone?
"Could anything be more of a farce?" Roosevelt demanded. "We have no money, no publicity, no nothing!" He wanted the party to unite more closely, to get rid of its "factionalism" and "localism," to do a better publicity job, to get on a firmer financial basis.
Roosevelt laid his plans artfully. He feared that the national committee would stymie any reform effort because the committee, consisting largely of old party work horses from each state, was the seedy fruit of the existing arrangements. He decided to bypass the national leaders and appeal directly to local party leaders, including delegates to the recent national convention.
Howard Dean, anyone?
To 3,000 of these leaders he wrote a letter that asked for their advice on improving the party but consisted mainly of a statement of Roosevelt's views on what should be done. "I take it that we are all agreed on certain fundamental truths," he said casually, and he proceeded to name them: the national party organization should be more active and work more closely with state organizations; publicity should be improved; party leaders should meet more often to plan for united action.
Compare with Dean's embrace of the netroots.
His letters aroused all the ancient vexations among the rank and file: Southerners complained about the party's liberalism, Westerners about the city bosses, Easterners about Bryanism and the anti-Catholic and antiliquor forces. But most of the several hundred respondents, doubtless taking their cue from Roosevelt's letter, called for drastic party reform. They wanted more unity, better organization, more leadership, more discipline, less factionalism and localism.
Think of the DLC.
"The Democrats are just a mob," an Iowan said disgustedly. Most, but not all, wanted the party to become or remain a liberal organization.
Fortified by these opinions, Roosevelt proposed a small national conference of the party to discuss issues and organization. At first, prospects for the plan seemed bright. Well-known Democrats including Davis, Cox, Hull, and Daniels backed it, and there was much favorable publicity. Since some elements in the party suspected that the project was a bid by Roosevelt for party leadership on Smith's behalf or his own, it seemed imperative to Roosevelt and Howe that Shaver as national chairman issue the call for the conference. But this Shaver would not do. The party's first job, he said, was to cut its organization to the bone and pay off its debt. The harder Roosevelt tried to force Shaver's hand the clearer it became that the national chairman was following party leaders who opposed reform.
Who were these leaders? Roosevelt had little trouble finding out. They were the Democratic chieftains in Congress, who were far more concerned about keeping their seats from their own states and districts than in re-forming ranks for a presidential victory in 1928.
You don't say?
Their real fear was that a concerted national effort by the party might jeopardize the position of some congressmen who could survive politically only by deserting the party platform and taking a position congenial to local interests.
You don't say?
Roosevelt was also unsuccessful in reforming methods of party finance. He was indignant that Jesse Jones was raising money from big contributors. When Jones of this he wrote Roosevelt a surprised letter -- he was paying off the party's debt, said the Texan, wasn't this enough? Roosevelt replied that the party should be financed from small contributions. He had estimated that if every election district of one thousand people contributed only five dollars per district, the Democrats could raise half a million dollars. Nothing came of this proposal either.
Nationally the Democratic party remained a divided, leaderless aggregation of state factions and sectional groupings. It followed precisely the policy Roosevelt feared most -- a policy of opportunism, or has he described it, a posture of waiting with hands folded for the Republicans to make mistakes.
A further historical note: in 1924, Al Smith, a Catholic and an opponent of Prohibition, was considered far too liberal even to be nominated in a country where the Ku Klux Klan controlled several statehouses and no small number of seats in Congress. Eight years later, FDR won by such a margin that a generational political realignment was all but obvious to anyone paying attention to such things.
A lot can change in eight years. Especially when a party organization starts to do the sorts of things that FDR championed over ten years before taking office as President. I think this tells us that we're on the right track as a party -- we just need to keep pressing forward to victory and realignment.