Wall Street Journal
November 13, 2012
Four years ago, it was said that the incoming Obama administration aspired to the dynamic that existed in Abraham Lincoln’s cabinet, where former competitors and antagonists came together to help the country through the Civil War. If Doris Kearns Goodwin’s “Team of Rivals” was the historical aspiration then, the model to emulate after this election is her earlier book, “No Ordinary Time,” about Franklin Roosevelt’s domestic policies during the latter years of the Great Depression and into World War II.
The 1930s were a period of extreme bitterness between the business community and the Roosevelt administration. Many executives deplored the president’s policies and refused to even utter his name, referring to him as “that man in the White House.” In turn, the president famously declared during the 1936 re-election campaign: “I welcome their hatred.”
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