Takin' It to the Streets

We learned in our high school history classes when studying the Great Depression that FDR was the first president to truly reach out and speak directly to the people, through what were known as his fireside chats. These were radio addresses, radio then being the mass medium equivalent to television and the internet in our contemporary times, and they were his way of talking to citizens without the filter of the mass media. We also learned that it was FDR’s New Deal programs that put people back to work and lifted the nation out of the depths of economic depression.

This second aspect is a matter of debate, especially now as our modern day pundits are awash in Great Depression comparisons and apocalyptic claims of gloom and doom for our economic system. There are many on the right who believe it is necessary to discredit the New Deal as simply providing the Democrats with a whole litany of social spending programs that allowed them to control national politics for a generation and which gave rise to the modern welfare state that they so deplore.

Those on the left argue that the spending provided by the New Deal was not enough, and that had FDR not given into the urge to control spending and deal with the increasing deficits we could have been out of the Depression even earlier. What most historians agree on however, is that from an economic standpoint it wasn’t until the enormous spending (and accompanying deficits) that came with the war effort in 1941-1945 that we actually came out of our economic malaise.

The point here is not to join this debate, it is one of those arguments like so many in politics where each side will use the facts that most help in making their claims, accusing the other side of revisionist history (which is somewhat of an oxymoron as all historical interpretation is to a large extent revisionist) and as in most debates between conservatives and liberals the truth likely lies somewhere in the middle of the two extremes. The point here is that FDR was effective in keeping the nation together through the decade of the 1930’s, and in keeping his popularity high enough to get reelected in 1936 through both his policies but perhaps more importantly by his means and style of communicating directly to the American people. This is the page from the playbook that our president is taking and I for one applaud it and find it to be highly effective.

Obama has been all over the airwaves, giving his modern day version of fireside chats, filling out tournament brackets on ESPN, going on the Tonight Show and 60 Minutes, giving a prime time press conference and giving numerous town hall style performances that are often picked up by the cable news channels. While I imagine that he is being lampooned on Fox News and other right wing medium such as the Wall Street Journal and National Review, I find it refreshing to have a president that is making himself so accessible and in doing so getting out of the Washington bubble and taking his message to the streets, and to the people directly.

I appreciate being able to hear our president speak without the filter of so many pundits and op-ed columnists who are generally critical without being critics. Those who make their living as the chattering class are always full of vehemence and outrage but generally short on actual ideas and solutions. They are also motivated not by some sense of civic duty or statesmanship, with few exceptions they are motivated by profit. The more outrageous their statements and writings, the more hyperbole they deliver, the more attention they bring to themselves and the organizations they represent, and the more advertising they can then sell on their networks or the more papers they can unload. Rush Limbaugh is a great example of this, but he is by no means alone and neither is this a phenomenon only of the right. For every Rush Limbaugh or Bill O’Reilly on the right there is a Keith Olberman or Paul Krugman on the left, blowing hard but contributing little but hot air.

So in his wisdom as a practical and pragmatic politician, Barack Obama is making his case directly to us, his constituents, and he is talking to us frankly, without filter, in an intelligent and articulate manner about issues that we actually care about. While the professional rabble rousers are busy covering Blago and Rush, or trying to get us worked up into a lather over the AIG bonuses, Obama is making his clear and convincing case for government spending as a means for boosting the economy, for health care reform as both an economic as well as moral issue, for energy policy as an environmental, economic, and national security concern. He is staying on message on education, presenting it as an issue that affects the long term vitality of our society and which must be addressed.

He has also recently sent his much maligned Treasury Secretary Timothy Geitner out to explain the fiscal policies that are attempting to deal with the banking and housing situations that lay at the heart of the recession. And after getting mostly the shallow carciature of the man provided by the pundits, it was interesting to listen to Geitner give two great interviews yesterday on Meet the Press and This Week, where he laid out administration policies in clear terms and impressed me with his level of knowledge and sincerity.

There is a line at the beginning of the movie Dances With Wolves, where a superior officer refers to Captain Dunbar, played by Kevin Costner, with the words that we finally have an officer here who’s worth something. Well, we finally have a president, and an administration who’s worth something, who are actually working hard to keep the promises of the campaign, who are intelligent and considerate, and most importantly pragmatic about dealing with the myriad of problems and challenges that face our nation and to a large extent the world.

I hope that Mr. Obama continues with the direct approach, I find it refreshing and effective, and I suspect that it is a big reason for his popularity in the polls remaining high despite the economic mess we’re in. Let the naysayers continue with what they do, they are mainly pandering to those who have decided to oppose our president at every turn. I believe that with sound policies and firm conviction, and with a continued direct delivery of the message, Obama will keep the support of the majority of the American people and will be able to enact many of the policies on which he campaigned and on which he was elected.