Defending the Public Good: FDR’s Portland Speech

Date: 11 Sep 2013 | posted in: From the Desk of David Morris, The Public Good | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

A month before the 1932 election, Franklin Roosevelt traveled to Portland, Oregon to deliver a speech about government and governance. Some 80 years later, his talk, given in the depths of the Depression to a nation that had yet to accept that government should play an important role, remains one of the clearest and most accessible … Read More

Sunny Post-Partisanship Sounds Nice, but What’s Obama’s Larger Vision?

Responding to criticism that President-elect Barack Obama’s cabinet is composed largely of recycled Bill Clinton appointees, Obama’s close advisor David Axelrod told the New York Times, "He’s not looking for people to give him a vision. He’s going to put together an administration of people who can effectuate his vision." A few days later, after introducing his foreign policy team, Obama himself declared, "I will be responsible for the vision that this team carries out, and I expect them to implement that vision once decisions are made.”   

Which leads to the inevitable question: What is Obama’s overarching vision? What is the philosophical framework that will animate his administration and guide his cabinet officers to adopt policies different from those they embraced in the past? 

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From Roosevelt to Gingrich: A Revolution in Compassion

Date: 8 Nov 1995 | posted in: From the Desk of David Morris, The Public Good | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

From Roosevelt to Gingrich: A Revolution in Compassion by David Morris November 8, 1995 At the 1932 Democratic Convention, the newly nominated Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared, “The first obligation of government is the protection of the welfare and well-being…of its citizens.” That new idea spawned the New Deal. In January, Republicans vowed to overturn the Roosevelt … Read More