Tuesday, August 08, 2006
A 21st-century Teddy Roosevelt?
From the RoundTable blog
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Will Reisinger
Reisinger is a resident of Blacksburg, a graduate of Emory & Henry, and in law school at Ohio Northern University.
My girlfriend, Alice, is a Republican, and she loves Teddy Roosevelt. She likes to remind me, a Democrat, that T.R. was a great conservationist, that he was a fierce watchdog of big business, that he was an early proponent of Social Security and the minimum wage -- and also that he was a Republican. Modern Republicans revel in thinking of T.R. as one of their own. But Roosevelt's enduring popularity with conservatives might not illustrate the strength of the Republican Party. Instead, it could show the potential for a resurgence of progressivism.
Roosevelt is hot these days. He's just been on the cover of Time magazine; he's frequently quoted by politicians from both parties; President Bush has been reading T.R.'s biography; Karl Rove gushes over him; Bob Dole used to keep a bust of Roosevelt on his desk; and T.R. is still the only 20th-century president whose face is carved into Mount Rushmore's granite.
Independence, forthrightness and valor: all are characteristics ascribed to Roosevelt. Newt Gingrich praises T.R. as "a natural maverick and reformer who did what he thought was right." Indeed, T.R. was and still is one of our most popular presidents because he was a strong and dynamic leader.
While Roosevelt may be best known and admired as a hero of the Spanish-American war and as a master of "big stick" diplomacy, he should also be remembered as, in many ways, a progressive.
T.R., nicknamed "trust buster," used the Sherman Anti-Trust act to break up business monopolies; he created the U.S. Forest Service so that forests could be conserved for all Americans to enjoy. T.R. also helped increase the role of the federal government in regulating the food industry with the Food and Drug Act, and he supported progressive ideas like Social Security and the minimum wage, ideas that would come to fruition under another President Roosevelt. T.R., in fact, even ran for president as a member of the Progressive Party (better known, though, as the Bull Moose Party).
Roosevelt's popularity suggests that with a strong, independent and charismatic leader, today's conservatives might be willing to accept, or even embrace, progressive reforms. One potential progressive leader could be the guy who's trying to unseat Sen. George Allen. Jim Webb -- a Republican-turned-Democrat, military hero, and frank-speaking Senate hopeful -- provides perhaps the most timely example of a candidate who, if elected, could find success in the T.R. mold.
So many similarities exist between Roosevelt and Webb that it's almost uncanny. Most obvious, both men served heroically in the military, T.R. as leader of the Rough Riders in the Spanish-American War and Webb as a decorated Marine in Vietnam.
After combat, Webb served as secretary of the Navy, T.R. as assistant secretary. And each chose to bolt from a Republican Party he felt had lost its bearing.
Roosevelt, a former two-term Republican president, denounced the GOP as corrupt, stormed out of the 1912 convention and ran for president as a Progressive.
Webb, after serving in the Reagan administration and supporting George W. Bush and George Allen in 2000, left the Republican Party after the invasion of Iraq because, he said, the party had "gone crazy."
Roosevelt was a well-known outdoorsman, and Webb has been spotted at times this summer, in the midst of a grueling campaign, backpacking alone in the mountains of Southwest Virginia. And both men were fighters, literally: Roosevelt began boxing at age 4, while Webb, whose campaign uses the slogan "Born Fighting," was on the varsity boxing squad at the Naval Academy.
Webb has received criticism for questioning affirmative action programs and deriding the idea of women in combat, and T.R., bellicose and often vulgar, would abhor the modern concept of political correctness.
Roosevelt once gave a campaign speech with a bullet lodged in his chest following an assassination attempt, and Webb stumps in his enlisted son's combat boots to remind people of the bloodshed in Iraq. Though their speech may be rough-edged and their style unconventional, it's the brashness, the realness and the strength of these men that we admire.
T.R.'s progressive streak is not unknown to Republicans like Alice. But they love him anyway. The modern Republican love affair with Roosevelt should tell us that conservatives could embrace progressive social and economic policies again, if given the right kind of leader.
Of course, Webb's campaign is a long shot, and we don't know how he would act in the Senate. Would he be a strong voice for affordable health care, environmental protection and workers' rights -- as he says he will be -- or would he ally himself with his GOP colleagues on most issues?
But if Webb -- war hero and sharp-tongued maverick -- can pull off a political miracle and unseat Allen, he has the potential to be a special leader, the kind of bold leader who could rally conservative Americans and revive Roosevelt's progressivism.
