HEARD ENOUGH ABOUT THE FIRST 100 DAYS?

We inherited the First 100 Days yardstick from Franklin Roosevelt and awkwardly apply it to other presidents in a different time. Who wouldn't like to be another Roosevelt? Kennedy, on occasion, thought he might be. Johnson was certain he had attained that level only to be politically decapitated by Vietnam. Clinton muses about it. Nothing wrong with having the political ambition to succeed by the ultimate standard of history.

Truth is there was only one Roosevelt and only one Great Depression. He had the instinct to succeed in politics. Some presidents were smarter. Some worked harder. Some were more consistent in their views. None had his political instinct. None ever will.

The Great Depression was the national leveler and the great unifier. Rich people were not so rich. Poor people were even poorer. The country was on its economic knees. Try anything. It's better than "Great Engineer" Hoover telling us (in 1931) that "prosperity is just around the corner" if we only wait for the magic of the marketers to take hold. Maybe one didn't understand all of this stuff about bank deposit insurance or relief payments or all of these alphabet concoctions like CCC or TVA. Trying something was better than doing nothing and waiting for "natural forces" to take a turn for the better.

Furthermore, that golden orator Roosevelt had swept in with him a phalanx of Democratic congress~men and senators. For most of the early years of the 20th century, Democrats in Congress were used to being on the outside looking in. Roosevelt put Congressional Democrats in control, where they have for the most part remained for 60 years. He converted also ran into the pillars of power. House and Senate Democrats were grateful when "grateful" was more than a word in the dictionary. There was a sense of party loyalty. Roosevelt's success or failure was their success or failure.

It's different today. The Democrats on Capitol Hill, by and large, aren't grateful to anyone except themselves and their contributors. They weren't created by Bill Clinton and figure they will be around after he is long gone. Their power comes from their incumbency and the ability to raise mounds of campaign funds for perpetuating that incumbency.

There is no such thing as party loyalty. It's every man and woman for him or her self operating as an independent contractor. Few congressmen or senators feel any allegiance to a party platform or a presidential candidate's campaign pledges. Just remember your contributors and obey whatever your pollster tells you is the currently prevalent public mood.

Electoral genius that he was, FDR would have a hard time operating in today's political atmosphere. Indeed, later on in his own career, as his popularity diminished a bit, Roosevelt had his own difficulties with the legislative branch. Today's stale economy is not so stale as to cause Congress to rush to experiment. Most experimentation in health care, education, housing, AIDS research, narcotics treatment, caring for the homeless would require additional funds. To the extent that Americans want change, they want it on the cheap. Better a remedy or reform by prayer or magic than one that costs money. Contemporary attitudes belie a second coming of Franklin Roosevelt. We not so anxiously await the next Great Depression.