A tale of two elections
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There was a discredited president, distrusted by his own party, portrayed by even his fondest allies as a disappointing underachiever. There was an eastern governor, decorated with breathtaking academic credentials and a star turn in the non-profit sector, mounting a serious challenge. There was the threat of minor-party candidacies, with charismatic leadership and a core of devoted supporters who could skew the contest. It was perhaps the greatest election in American history. It was exactly a century ago.
That year, 1912, stands as a hinge in American history. It was when the Republicans reverted from their new identity as the party of reformers back to being the party of business, when the Democrats transformed themselves from outsider social critics to insider social activists, when questions about the character of capitalism filled the air, and when the power -- and limits -- of personality in politics were glimpsed.
Often we view the past not so much through a mirror as through a magnifying glass -- Lyndon Johnson and Barry Goldwater, the combatants from 1964, for example, seeming so much bigger, more substantial, than their counterparts from our own time -- but in truth the principals of Election 1912 were larger than life, arguably larger than their equivalents from Election 2012.
American politics rarely repeats itself, but when it does, it sometimes happens with almost eerie century-long congruity. The elections of 1828 and 1928, for example, were about the accessibility of the White House to outsiders, just as the elections of 1864 and 1964 were choices between continuity and radical departure. The 2012 election has strong echoes of 1912, with the Republican Party holding a remarkable, unexpected seminar, about the capacities and dangers of capitalism -- and the capacities and dangers of government regulation.
Only once or twice in a generation does the country examine with such searing rhetoric and sharp-eyed judgment these kinds of fundamental questions about business and government. It has been great sport to argue that this year's early political contests have been dominated by farcical characters. But no one can plausibly argue that the contests themselves have been about peripheral issues. These are the bedrock questions of a democracy and mature economy.
First Published February 5, 2012 12:00 am
