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An FDR parallel
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In the Sept. 6 article "Acceptance Speech Is Fraught With Peril, Witness Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter" by James M. Perry, Mr. Perry suggests that President Barack Obama's nomination for a second term as president strongly parallels that of Herbert Hoover's. In reality, Mr. Obama's current situation bears little resemblance to the predicament faced by Hoover when he sought re-election in 1932.
That year, the Dow Jones was trading at a fraction of the value it was when Hoover took office. On the other hand, the stock market today has almost doubled its value since 2008 when Mr. Obama was elected. Moreover, when Republican Herbert Hoover was elected president in 1928, he opted to stay the same course as his two Republican predecessors, Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge, firm in the belief that the market would take care of itself. Thus ensued the Great Depression!
Economic stability was gone and so was Herbert Hoover in his bid for a second term! Therefore, after the 1932 election it fell to Franklin Delano Roosevelt to deal with the disastrous results created by a decade of laissez faire governing and to set in motion those forces and government programs that ultimately resulted in a stronger middle-class society.
I contend that Barack Obama finds himself today not in the position of Herbert Hoover, but rather in the same position as did Franklin Delano Roosevelt seeking his second term in office. Like FDR in 1936, Mr. Obama finds himself partly through the long-term programs needed to correct the financial collapse initiated under the watch of his Republican predecessors. In fact, it is Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan who are the ideological heirs of Herbert Hoover!
LINDA NEUMANN
Shaler
First Published September 15, 2012 12:00 am
