Would you have voted for Eleanor Roosevelt if she had run for president?

[More Than A Feeling]

After a Teddy Roosevelt presidency, having Franklin on the ticket in 1920, then four terms of him, would having Eleanor have been too much of a dynasty for you?

edited for grammar

[Buzz Clik]

1. I was a bit young at the time...

[patricia92243]

2. I would have loved to vote for her - first woman prez, humanitarian - what's not to love??

[wryter2000]

6. Might I add

Hillary is no Eleanor Roosevelt.

[patricia92243]

26. I don't see Hillary's name mentioned in the OP. n/t

[More Than A Feeling]

27. Yeah, but everyone knew what I was talking about anyway.

As I knew they would.

[kirby]

3. I have no idea

Without living during the time and within the context, I have no clue.

I can only answer that today I'm sick of all my adult life being Bush and Clinton and I want a change.

[wryter2000]

4. Touche

However, Bush, Clinton, Clinton, Bush, Bush followed by Clinton is probably a bit longer. Plus, the Bush/Bush stuff suggests a dynasty, which two married people serving after each other doesn't.

In any case, the dynasty question isn't my major problem with Hillary. (I should add that I will vote for her in the general election if she's our candidate.)

[dsc]

10. Not really

Teddy was on the ballot four times 1896 (VP), 1900, 1904, and 1912. FDR was on the ballot 5 times 1920, 1932, 1936, 1940, and 1944. Even just counting years served you had 21 to 22 years and Elenor would add 8 to get 30.

[bornskeptic]

42. minor correction

Theodore Roosevelt was not on the ballot in 1896. McKinley's first VP died in office and Roosevelt was chosen as McKinley's running mate in 1900. Prior to 1900, TR was governor of NY.

[dsc]

43. damn McKinley was death on a stick

Thanks for the correction.

[pocoloco]

5. Hillary is not even close to being in Eleanor's league!

Damn right I would!

[saracat]

7. As I suppose this is a vieled response to those who are unenthusiastic about Hillary, I would like

point out that there is NO comparison to the two women.Eleanor was a genuine activist who really cared for people and took tremedous risks , even standing up to her own husband in order to advance progressive issues. I would have enthusiastically supported Eleanor and think it is a shame no one l;ike her is running for president.Hillary is a competant and political creature. I admire her for many things but she is NO Eleanor.

[Mountainman]

8. Yes, I would vote for her. She was far more liberal than her husband and she worked with the real

working class in America and around the world. She did much for civil rights and for the UN. I think in many ways she bested Franklin as a great person. She had gay friends and made no attempt to hide it.


She is one of my heroes. A person I can really look up to.

[liberal N proud]

9. Had I been alive...

I would have looked at here agenda the same as any other candidates.
If she is the one with the right message and is sincere, it would make no difference that Franklin had 4 terms.

And I look at Hillary much the same way, she stands on her own, not as part of the Bill Clinton Presidency continued. I assume you were getting to the Hillary/Bill factor.

Now as far as that goes, she is not my first choice. I like John Edwards message better at this point.

[Old and In the Way]

11. Sure.

nt

[StudentsMustUniteNow]

12. Love FDR, strongly dislike Eleanor

She was a rabid anti-Semite and a stuck-up aristocrat.

[Bullet1987]

14. Very few people on this board I doubt we alive during that time...lol

[Totally Committed]

22. I just read your definition of a "Liberal" in another thread...

Have you by any chance fallen and hit your head today?

Just wondering.


TC

[saracat]

28. Hey kid, Eleanor was one of my Grandmothers best friends and Eleanor was

neither an anti-Semite OR and Elitist.You are getting some really wacko info.

[StudentsMustUniteNow]

29. Jean Edward Smith's latest FDR biography

I can quote from it if you like.

[saracat]

30. Thanks .I consider my grandmother a primary source.

My grandfather was in Roosevelt's brain trust and he was the Counsel from the Motion Picture Producers and Directors of America.David O.Selznick was my Dad's godfather.Neither my Grandparents OR the Roosevelt's were anti-Semitic and I resent such lies being perpetuated.

[StudentsMustUniteNow]

31. Well the quotes are directly from Ms. Roosevelt's letters

One can be anti-Semitic and still have redeeming qualities, or even get along well with Jews. Calm down.

[saracat]

34. I think you should know that Eleanor was one of the only people to

speak out for Jewish refugees during the Holocaust and that she was one of the earliest supporters of Israel.Here is a link to one of her columns.There is more is you have an inquiring mind. I will NOT calm done as you are perpetrating a slander on a very great lady.
http://www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/myday/displaydoc.cfm?_y=1957&_f=md003928

[StudentsMustUniteNow]

36. Her letters at one point contained harshly anti-Semitic statements

You don't need to like Jews to help Jews.

[saracat]

38. Really? Well she was of her time and The author of the biography you quote seems

determined to denigrate Eleanor's contribution to the FDR legacy .But whatever. Perhaps the following will better illustrate my point.It is impossible that Eleanor was anti-Semitic.She didn't just "help Jews" as you put it. And she was far far less elitist than Franklin, another slam that you originally made.

http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:hJESNF0DjBAJ:www.arts.u-szeged.hu/elteal/ae/ae2_2004_reading.html+Eleanor+Roosevelt+anti+semitic+letters&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=9&gl=usHistory will always be haunted by ER's reverberating silence on this subject, since on virtually all
others ER was adamant: Silence is the ultimate collusion." What especially troubles Cook is that she
found not one example in ER's private correspondence where she comments specifically on the
treatment of the Jews in Germany.
In truth, Eleanor Roosevelt was of a class and time when anti-Semitism was an accepted part of
society. and she rose above this (just as she did with racism) with much effort. Her silence is
puzzling, but it is hard to share Cook's indignation when the leader is also given so much evidence
of ER's other actions: privately challenging anti-Semitism by resigning from the Colony Club when
her friend Elinor Morgenthau was blackballed, working tirelessly on refugee issues, trying to
improve the racial climate at home so that it could not be used to justifyGermany's treatment of the
Jews. Given the political constraints that she was under, an alternative reading of her actions in the
l930s would credit her with recognizing the dangers of the international situation long before the
issue even registered in the consciousnesses of most Americans.

[Captain Hilts]

46. She was anti-Semetic when young and Saw the Light.

Smith is an ardent admirer of Eleanor Roosevelt.

[Captain Hilts]

45. Uh, no. She supported Israel and her best bud - Elinor Morgenthau was Jewish.

Not to mention Herbert Lehman and Bernie Baruch.

Ignorant comment. Troll.

[tigereye]

13. sure, Eleanor was very cool!

I can see what you are driving at... ;)


some folks here seem to have forgotten that Clinton did some great things (not all, of course) during his terms, and that there was a lot of economic prosperity. And his wife was seen as more liberal than he was...

food for thought.

[Ken Burch]

15. Of course. And the analogy doesn't hold anyway.

Not only was Eleanor clearly to FDR's left, she and FDR were Democrats and Teddy, while an environmentalist, was a Republican who supported an openly imperialist foreign policy(FDR would not have kept mindlessly expanding the U.S. war machine and unquestioningly pumping up the Cold War as Truman did).

And unlike Hillary, Eleanor has non-negotiable principles.

[More Than A Feeling]

18. If it was meant to be a trick (it wasn't), it wasn't a very good one, was it?

Since everyone knew at once what I was talking about. No, actually, I was just thinking about the Roosevelts and it occurred to me that if they weren't a dynasty, nobody was, and so I wanted to see if the loathing of dynasties was in general, or particular to the "Bush/Clinton/Bush/Clinton" meme, and now I have my answer.

Also, I'm an Edwards supporter, not a Hillary fan, but that doesn't bar me from asking questions like this one.

[Ken Burch]

24. I stand corrected as to your motivations.

And have now removed the disparaging last line from my previous post.

Still, you can understand why people might make that assumption.

[More Than A Feeling]

25. Much appreciated!

Yeah I understand how people could think that.

[Solon]

16. Hell yes! We would have had a Civil Rights bill of 1954...

instead of 64. We would have had an United Nations that would be much stronger than the one today, and she most likely would have laid the groundwork for gay rights, decades early. She was also someone who took no crap from ANYONE, not even her husband, and made no bones about it. Given that, she would have accomplished a HELL of a lot more than anyone else, plus she was damned near universally adored, nationwide, and IF she ran, would have won, with probably higher margins than her husband.

You can't compare Eleanor Roosevelt with Hillary Clinton, there really is no comparison here.

[Arugula Latte]

17. Yes, because she was a true progressive.

Not a DLC corporatist.

[onenote]

19. I wouldn't have decided not to vote for her simply because she was married to FDR

And I'm trying to figure out the relevance of (a) Teddy Roosevelt, FDR's fifth cousin, having served as president twenty four years earlier and (b) of the fact that FDR ran and lost for VP 13 years before he was elected president.

Does having a fifth cousin serve as president and losing an election make a "dynasty"?

[tech3149]

20. Ms Roosevelt was responsible for a neighboring community's existence

I would have voted for four consecutive terms. I think in many ways she was the driving force behind FDR's liberal policies.

[MichiganVote]

21. Well Teddy Roosevelt was a republican and Franklin R. came some time after him as a Dem.

Eleanor R. was in opposition to many of the policies of her husband's terms. She wrote a book in opposition to them in 1938. ER was also opposed to jews and catholics both in her personal life and at the political level.

So I guess my point is, regardless of the name association, three different people in three different time frames. I really don't think the premise that the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton leadership idea is the same thing.

[ulysses]

23. sure.

[Ethelk2044]

32. No

[MGKrebs]

33. If she could convince me she was the most capable.

Why would I restrict my choices because of some weird quirk of fate that might have made the most qualified candidate related to a previous President?

Would she have beaten Harry Truman in the primary? All polls showed that he was going to lose, but somehow beat Dewey. Would Eleanor beaten him? Could she have kept the Dixiecrats from splitting? No, and No.


If Eleanor were running today? I doubt I would pick her over Clinton. There has been a lot of water under the bridge.

[msanthrope]

35. What she Did for Marian Anderson Alone

would have won my vote; the fact that it was one of just many instances of great personal character is a testament to the fortitude and forthrightness of that Great Lady.....

"In 1939, the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) refused permission for Anderson to sing to an integrated audience in Constitution Hall. The District of Columbia Board of Education declined a request to use the auditorium of a white public high school. As a result of the furor which followed, thousands of DAR members, including First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, resigned.

At the suggestion of Walter White, then-executive secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and with the support of Eleanor Roosevelt, Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes organized an open air concert for Anderson on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The concert, commencing with a dignified and stirring rendition of "America" attracted a crowd of more 75,000 of all colors and was a sensation with a national radio audience.

The concert mentioned above was held on Easter Sunday in 1939. Anderson was accompanied by the Finnish accompanist Kosti Vehanen, who introduced Marian to Jean Sibelius in 1933. Sibelius was overwhelmed with Anderson's performance and asked his wife to bring champagne in place of the traditional coffee. At this moment Sibelius started altering and composing songs for Anderson, who was delighted to have met a musician of Sibelius' magnitude, who felt that she had been able to penetrate the Nordic soul."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marian_Anderson

Never seen Ms. Anderson? Video and Audio....

http://www.library.upenn.edu/exhibits/rbm/anderson/lincoln.html

[burrowowl]

37. AMEN!

Wasn't born then, but if I had been of age, would have voted for her!

[saracat]

39. Right on.And to think some posted she was an elitest and anti Semite! GRRR>

[TygrBright]

40. Against who? n/t

[Vidar]

41. Absolutely, without question.

[Captain Hilts]

44. Yes, I would have.

She proved herself to be a pretty tough customer and damned smart after FDR died.