MISSOURI COMMENTARY: REAL THING, OR TEPIC ECHO? FDR MOVED AMERICA LEFT

Newt Gingrich, speaker of the House-elect, is a man of rapid-fire, quotable quotes. Some are horrific. Some are profound. Let's deal with a profound one: "You can never study Franklin Delano Roosevelt too much. He did bring us out of the Depression. He did lead the Allied movement in World War II. In many ways he created the modern world. He was clearly, I think, as a political leader, the greatest figure of the 20th century." Absolutely correct. Despite the recent Republican landslide, Franklin Roosevelt looms large over contemporary American politics.

Prior to FDR, the politics of this country was totally on the conservative side. Presidential candidates were very conservative or mostly conservative. In 1920, it was very conservative Warren Harding versus mostly conservative James Cox. In 1924, it was a very-very race: Calvin Coolidge versus John Davis. In 1928, it was another very-mostly race: Herbert Hoover versus Al Smith.

In 1932, however, very conservative Herbert Hoover faced unknown quantity Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt had charm, style, charisma and a voice. He was also, like Hoover, for a balanced budget, but also seemed to be saying that government should do a thing or two.

The crisis of the Great Depression caused Roosevelt to act dramatically immediately after his inauguration. Hoover believed that free markets could resolve matters and, if there were some humanitarian problems, private charities and the churches would relieve the suffering -- today's Phil Gramm philosophy. Roosevelt knew that by 1933 the free enterprise system had virtually collapsed and that government had to intervene, not to crush capitalism, but to save it. My later father-in-law went to his grave believing that Roosevelt was determined to put him out of business. To the contrary, Roosevelt saved him and other businessmen like him.

FDR moved America's political center to the left, where it remains to this day. Presidential elections from 1936 on have offered the voters "a choice, not an echo," as Phyllis Schlafly once wrote.

To be sure, Ronald Reagan later moved the Roosevelt center a bit to the right, but the Roosevelt center basically held sway in the 1980s.

That brings us to 1992 and also to this moment. Was 1992 a choice-not-an-echo campaign between rather moderate Bill Clinton (e.g., reduce the deficit, welfare reform) and a president without even the semblance of a domestic idea? Or was it basically a contest between a Roosevelt-like Democrat (e.g., universal health care) and an out-of-touch, increasingly unpopular incumbent president?

We didn't know the answers to those questions in 1992, and we can't answer them in 1994. Why?

The political mood has changed substantially since 1980. Beginning with Reagan, there has been an increasing polarization of the American electorate. The cleavage between the haves and have nots has grown more bitter. It isn't simply Wall Street versus the ghetto. On the Republican side, it's Wall Street, small entrepreneurs and blue-collar workers who see diminishing job prospects for their children. It includes the devoutly religious and those people who are frightened by the current loose mores of society. It's people who sense they are falling behind economically. On the Democratic side are the poor, minorities and some from the foregoing groups -- but not enough to win current elections.

Clinton's philosophical flexibility is a product of both his own personal electoral history and today's unsettled political atmosphere. No politician today digs in and says, "I'm a traditional FDR Democrat. Take me or dump me, as you see fit." Even Ted Kennedy talked about crime and the budget deficit in his recent election.

The "moderates" in the Democratic Leadership Council, led by representative-once-was and Senator not-to-be David McCurdy, demand that Clinton be a copy-cat Democrat and simply espouse a tinkered-with version of the Gingrich game plan. McCurdy wants Clinton to join with Gingrich on welfare reform (perhaps without a Federal Orphanage Subsidy Fund), cut spending on Medicare and Medicaid, propose a modest change or two in health care, and turn over most things to the states and the local charities. The Red Cross, the Salvation Army, and the Little Sisters of the Poor supposedly can take care of most everything.

As far as McCurdy is concerned, it's back to the 1930s with the Democratic Party being a tepid echo of the Republican Party. Most people prefer the real thing rather than tepid echoes.

~Tom Eagleton is a former U.S. senator from Missouri and a columnist for the Pulitzer Publishing Co.