How Wendell helped FDR prepare the country for war.
For those of us depressed by the corruption and mismanagement that the American political system has wrought lately, the book should provide hope that, under the right circumstances, that same system can turn things around.
One can question whether the circumstances are right today. Peters certainly takes pains to describe how different American culture was back then. Yet he also marvels at the role of chance and individual character. Had France not fallen just as the GOP convention was opening, or had Willkie followed other advice, history might have turned out quite differently.
The same, I think, can be said of our own time. Recall what the nation felt like immediately after 9/11. For a few brief months, we were more united than at any point in my lifetime. Had President Bush wanted to, he could have called for rescinding his tax cuts, a crash program of mandatory national service, and major reforms of NATO and the United Nations in the service of a united war on terror. The country and the world, I think, would have responded positively. It was his choice to take us in a different direction.
Or think about the last election. The candidate who most closely resembled Willkie was probably Wesley Clark. Had the former general and onetime Republican voter decided to jump into the presidential race a year earlier, chosen cleverer advisors, and not conceded Iowa, I think the probability is high that he would have won the nomination, and maybe the presidency.
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