Editor’s note: This op-ed is by Barrie Dunsmore, commentator and veteran ABC News diplomatic correspondent. It originally appeared in the Sunday Rutland Herald and Barre-Montpelier Times Argus.
Underdog President Harry Truman’s 1948 election campaign ought to resonate with the current resident of the White House. President Barack Obama’s approval rating is down in recent polls to near 40 percent. Two thirds of Americans give him failing grades for his handling of the economy. And virtually no one believes the country is going in the right direction. In 1948, Truman too was in serious electoral trouble and the conventional wisdom was that he would lose the election to the Republican candidate, most likely to be Thomas E. Dewey (the man the final pre-election polls in the fall of ‘48 infamously predicted would win.)
As Obama is today, Truman was hamstrung by a Republican-controlled Congress, which was not going to pass anything that he proposed, lest it give the president an electoral advantage. Facing that reality, Truman vigorously campaigned against a “Do Nothing Congress.” At one stop early on, someone in the crowd yelled out, “Give-em Hell, Harry.” Truman replied: “I don’t give them Hell. I just tell the truth about them and they think it’s Hell.” Thereafter, at every whistle-stop as he traveled by train around the country, the crowds would roar, “Give-’em Hell, Harry!” — and Truman happily obliged.
But ’48 is famous for something more significant. In July, the Democratic National Convention was in an uproar over civil rights. Liberals, led by Sen. Hubert Humphrey, demanded that the party platform call for the abolition of segregation in the armed forces. Truman initially supported a watered down version to placate southern Democrats, but when the majority of delegates voted to overrule the platform committee in favor of the liberal version, Truman had little choice but to go along. Of course, Sen. Strom Thurmond did not, and bolted the convention with many southerners to form the “Dixiecrat” party, which pundits of the day predicted could spell doom for Democrats in November.
Missouri-born Truman was a man whose grandparents supported the Confederacy and one who had been heard in private using the “N” word. But he was an intrinsically fair man who was appalled at how returning WWII black veterans were being violently mistreated, especially in the South. And so on July 26t, 1948 he issued the then most significant presidential executive order dealing with race since the Civil War. That Executive Order 9981 states: “It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President, that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color or national origin.” Thus in the middle of a presidential election campaign, Truman took a principled position on a highly controversial subject, aware that it might cost him the election.
Presidential executive orders do not carry the same legal weight as acts of Congress but there was no way such a law could be passed at that time. As high-ranking opponents of desegregation within the military dragged their feet, it would be six years – until Sept. 30, 1954 – before the last segregated black unit in all the U.S. armed services was officially abolished. Yet in a much shorter time, Truman was rewarded.
What is still little noted is that Truman’s support for civil rights, rather than being a losing issue which split the Democrats, turned out to be a major key to his electoral victory. Thurmond’s Dixiecrats got only 2 percent of the national vote, while African Americans in the North and Midwest voted overwhelmingly for Truman, in record numbers. They were the determining factor in both Ohio and Illinois where Truman won by less than 1 percent. And if he hadn’t won both those states, he would have lost the election.
I see signs Obama is learning from Truman’s 1948 performance. The obvious lesson is that when facing implacable opponents determined to block any presidential initiative no matter how beneficial to the country, you cannot simply throw in the towel, thereby acquiescing in their intransigence. For too long that has seemed to be Obama’s inclination. Since he announced his jobs initiative a couple of months ago, he is clearly more combative and credible.
And as with Truman, Obama’s decision to start doing things he has the power to do without congressional approval may also pay dividends. It is true that using a presidential order to allow at least a million people with mortgages that are greater than the current value of their homes to refinance at today’s low interest rates, is not going to totally solve the foreclosure crisis. Nor will it turn the economy around. But helping a million or more people in need is no small thing.
One related thought. I see no chance for Obama or the Democrats to co-opt the Occupy Wall Street movement — nor should they try. Many Democrats have problems of their own with their ties to Wall Street. And certainly, in the eyes of the OWS protesters, Obama’s choices of Tim Geithner as his treasury secretary and Larry Summers as his chief economic adviser, amount to incriminating evidence of collusion with the “fat cats.” Yet it seems to me that the real message of the Occupy Wall Street groups, wherever they may be, is the fact that there are tens of thousands of people willing to take to the streets because they’ve concluded that the world’s political/economic system is no longer fair to the vast majority of citizens. And as we are learning, there are millions in this country and elsewhere who agree with the demonstrators, on that point at least.
If handled deftly, this frustration with the system can be of benefit to Obama. Based on things he is now determinedly trying to do for the majority of Americans, he can legitimately contrast himself with his political opponents. Their sole purpose seems to be to continue to reduce the tax burden on the very rich at the expense of the middle class. There is another full year before the next election – time enough to hammer that message home, even as Harry did.
